Blood Hina

by Naomi Hirahara

  But once he reached Spoon’s, no one seemed to be in, no cars in the driveway. In fact, the whole street seemed dead quiet. These days in the L.A. suburbs, robbers came in the broad daylight, because like this street in Montebello, everyone was out working or running errands. Mas learned his lesson from the last time and stayed put in the truck and waited. It was still spring and was only in the seventies, but he rolled down the window just for good measure.

  He soon fell asleep and only stirred when he thought he heard something outside. His face was smack against the banana-yellow passenger seat, his cheek wet with drool. He sat up and wiped his face with the back of his wrist. Sure enough, the sound of glass breaking. He got out of the truck and was in the middle of the street when a silver Oldsmobile Cutlass dangerously sped by him, almost clipping the monster side mirror he and Tug had installed. The Oldsmobile veered into the neighbor’s driveway and screeched to a stop. Out of the car appeared that woman with the crazy birds’ nest hair. It wouldn’t do to have someone call the police again, so Mas attempted to explain himself.

  “Hey you,” he called out.

  The lady ran toward the back door.

  Sonafagun, Mas muttered to himself. What kind of jumpy woman was this? He thought better of pursuing her. Forget about it. Mas needed to hightail it out of there before Officers Gallegos and Chang made their way over. He hadn’t even reached the Ford when he heard a high-pitched shriek coming from her house. Mas ran toward the house and up the front steps, only to have the door fly open with two men in ski masks heading right at him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Reflexively, Mas closed his eyes for a second. He knew that in self-defense closing one’s eyes didn’t make sense. You needed to face and clearly assess your opponent, both his weaknesses and strengths. But under Mas’s skin was that forever experience, when the skies turned black and his eardrums felt like they were exploding and then the whole world—his schoolmates, the train station, everything he knew in downtown Hiroshima—was on fire. Closing his eyes was a hope that he was dreaming, that the bad thing coming at him was imagined, not real. So when the two masked men ran toward him, Mas closed his eyes.

  When he opened them, the magic seemed to have worked, because he was still standing, albeit a little wobbly. The men were gone from his field of vision, but he heard their footsteps behind him. He turned around and saw the men jump into a cable-company van (why had Mas missed that earlier?), rev up the engine, and speed down the street.

  Mas didn’t waste any time figuring out why they’d passed him by. He was used to being ignored, being passed over. An old Japanese man in sweaty, dirt-sodden clothes—he wouldn’t take himself seriously either. Some would be angered by the slight, but Mas saw his invisibility as an advantage, not a curse.

  The woman’s scream had come from inside the house, and he tried looking through the front picture window, but it was meticulously covered in newspaper from the inside, as if the room was being painted. He edged toward the screen door—the main door was still open. The hardwood floor was clear, aside from some balls of scrunched-up newspaper.

  “Hallo,” Mas called out. No response. He gingerly pulled open the screen and stepped into the house. Boxes lined the walls, and most of the furniture was covered with white sheets. Not only did it seem like the neighbor was renovating, but he also got the distinct feeling that she was on the move.

  “Hallo,” he said a little louder, then staying quiet to hear a response. He thought he heard something emanating from a back room. He crept through the living room and poked his head into the next room, the kitchen. There on the floor was the old woman, who was covering her mouth with her own hand, apparently trying to silence her cries. Two bags of groceries lay scattered beside her—obviously she’d been frightened by the two men. Her beehive hairdo was off kilter and coming loose.

  Mas crouched by a container of fresh orange juice turned on its side. “Youzu orai, lady?”

  The woman shrieked again and retracted her legs back like a crab seeking refuge. Her foot seemed bent awkwardly, as if she had hurt her ankle.

  Mas looked around for the telephone and rose to pick up the receiver from the phone mounted on the wall.

  “Who are you calling?” The woman suddenly got coherent.

  “Police.”

  “No!” She hobbled herself up, clutching at the tile counter. “No police. They said no police.”

  He replaced the receiver and drew up a chair for the woman to rest her hurt foot. Somehow this act of kindness convinced her that she could trust Mas, at least for a few moments. She sat down and winced as she pulled up her injured foot. “I don’t think it’s broken,” she said, and Mas nodded. He’d gotten in his share of scrapes on the job, and at worst, her pink ankle might be slightly sprained. He went to the freezer and pulled out a bag of corn. “Hold dis down,” he ordered the woman, who eventually introduced herself as Sonya de Groot (no surprise to Mas). Mas didn’t bother to introduce himself, so Sonya went ahead to connect the dots.

  “You’re a friend of Spoon’s, aren’t you? You were the one at her house the other day.”

  Yah, you the one who called the police on me, Mas wanted to say, but he restrained himself. “My friend is Haruo, the guy Spoon was gonna marry.”

  “Yes, I heard they canceled the wedding. Was that Haruo’s doing or Spoon’s?”

  “Spoon.”

  “I see.”

  Mas didn’t like the tone of that “I see.” Mas was no wordsmith—far from it, because there was really no language that he completely called his own. But because he lacked a facility with words, he had become an expert on inflections. He’d learned to read a person’s frown lines in between the eyebrows, for example, or the deliberate blinking of the eyes and the pursing of the lips. He listened for gaps in between words, how the voice went higher and lower or perhaps stayed completely flat. That “I see” meant that Sonya wasn’t surprised, that she had a hunch that Spoon would break it off, stolen dolls or not.

  “Itsu all about those Japanese hina dollsu.”

  Sonya’s face turned ashen. “What about the dolls?”

  “Somebody took them. Dat Dee say Haruo the one.”

  Sonya stopped icing her ankle and dropped the thawing bag of corn onto the linoleum floor. “When were they stolen?”

  “Friday night.”

  “But then why—”

  “Those guysu today, they want the dollsu?”

  Sonya sucked her lips into her mouth and nodded.

  “Youzu coulda just tole them to see Spoon.”

  Sonya shook her head. “I’d never do that. I’d never do anything that might put that woman in danger. She’s like family. Our husbands were like brothers. Ike even lived with us before the accident, you know?”

  Mas narrowed his eyes.

  “Spoon didn’t tell you or your friend, did she? They were on the brink of divorce. It was a big secret. I didn’t understand. The hiding of their marital problems had to do with the Japanese culture—you know, shame and everything. They didn’t even tell their daughters that they were living apart. The girls had moved out then, and well, Dee was having her own problems and living in that drug rehab facility. Whenever the family all came together, Ike would just move back home, like everything was normal hunky-dory.”

  Mas couldn’t help but to raise his eyebrows.

  “I felt the same way. I would be worn out from all that deception, but I think Ike was really good at keeping secrets. Actually my Jorg was good, too, but maybe it was just because he was so quiet. Never said a peep about anything. Ike, compared to Jorg, was the noisy one, actually, but he was on the quiet side as well. They were so similar inside but so different on the outside—Jorg must have been a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier. I joked that if it weren’t for that and Ike being Japanese ancestry and Jorg being Dutch, that they were identical twins.” Sonya laughed, and Mas thought he saw a moment of her youth in her smile. But as quickly as it landed on her face, the lighthearte
dness disappeared.

  “We took care of Ike’s family farm during the war, you know. Jorg even went up to that camp—Manzanar—up there in the Owens Valley to give regular reports. We helped the brothers some afterward, too, when Ike spent a few years in Japan with the Occupational Forces.”

  Mas pretended like he knew what Sonya was talking about, but it must have been pretty plain that he didn’t.

  “Your friend didn’t know about that, huh? Ike kept it all hush-hush for some reason. Spoon lived there with him for a couple of years, I think.”

  Mas’s jaw went slack. Spoon never let on that she’d lived in Japan.

  “Ike was also connected with that guayule project in Manzanar. You don’t know about guayule, do you?”

  “Izu ova in Japan during the war.” Mas offered as an excuse.

  “These flower growers and scientists from Caltech, they were trying to grow some natural rubber out there. Rubber was hard to come by during World War Two, so they started growing these guayule plants right in Manzanar to see if they could remedy the situation. Ike helped run the guayule farm in Manzanar. He thought this guayule could be ground-breaking, help the United States be less dependent on foreign rubber, I guess. It didn’t work out. Jorg thinks there might have even been some interference, you know, from tire manufacturers. They put guayule out of business, at least right after the war.”

  The more Mas learned of what these Nisei men and women did in camp, the more impressed he became. Yeah, second-generation Japanese Americans like Wishbone and Stinky weren’t the epitome of respectability—they were the bottom of the barrel, in fact—but even Mas had to give them credit for having some kick after being locked up by their own country. Like Haruo had bragged, this Ike was something else. He was an entrepreneur and he knew science. Just imagine what he would have done with his life if he hadn’t been Japanese.

  How could this man and his best friend, Jorg, have been dealing in drugs? It was baka talk, stupid and without reason. Casey had no clue. Casey had been angry, and his anger had almost ensnared Mas, who wasn’t going to dare breathe a word to Jorg’s widow.

  Mas knelt down to pick up the bag of frozen corn and told Sonya to keep cooling down her ankle. Luckily, it didn’t seem serious, because the swelling was minor.

  “I don’t know why everyone wants those dolls.”

  Mas readjusted his cap. “Eberyone?”

  “My son, for example. When Geoffrey heard about the dolls and that Spoon had bought them, he was furious. Said some awful things, like Ike had led my husband astray.… ‘If it hadn’t been for Ike, Dad would be with us now.’ He wanted me to buy back the dolls. ‘What were they doing in Dad’s secret safe-deposit box?’ he asked. I tried to get them, but Spoon was firm. She didn’t want to let go of them, and I can’t blame her. I mean, they were from Ike’s family, not ours. She got so upset with me and so did Geoffrey. I was caught in the middle, and I didn’t like it.”

  This was a slightly different story than Spoon had shared with Mas. In Spoon’s version, the de Groot woman had stopped talking to her for no reason. But here her lifetime friend and neighbor was also mourning the loss of their friendship.

  “Didn’t know Spoon even have money for dollsu,” said Mas, not revealing how much was spent at the Hina House.

  “Well, she has her Dee account.”

  Mas raised his eyebrows.

  “Ike’s insurance money. From the very beginning she told me she had it socked away in a special account for recovery programs for Dee. Rehab can be pretty expensive.”

  Mas nodded. Made sense that the mother would want to sacrifice comforts for her troubled daughter. He wondered how the two other sisters felt about Dee’s favored-daughter status.

  “I’m moving out to live with my Geoffrey and his family.

  Geoffrey insisted, especially after I started getting these calls about the dolls. Threatening calls, ugly calls. They didn’t identify themselves and said they would divulge the truth about Jorg if I went to the police. I don’t know what they were talking about. Just scare tactics, I think. But when I told Geoffrey, he said to keep it private, in the family. He told me I should move to his house in Oceanside.”

  Sonya pushed back a wayward hair that had gotten loose from the tumbleweed on her head. “My grandchildren are still at the age where they don’t mind being with their Grammy, so I’m going along with the move. But I like being on my own, so this will be a hard adjustment.”

  Mas explained that he was in the same boat. “I gotsu a new roommate too. Haruo.”

  “Friends living together can really test the relationship.” Sonya nodded. “Some of us are just meant to live alone.”

  The phone rang and the old woman jumped as if it was the sound of a gunshot.

  Like Mas, she didn’t have a message machine, so it kept ringing and ringing.

  “They’ll keep calling until someone picks up.”

  Mas figured he would do the honors and lifted the receiver. He’d barely put the receiver to his ear when a male voice declared, “Bitch, just give us what your husband left or we won’t leave you alive next time.”

  Mas slammed down the phone without saying anything.

  “He said something horrible, didn’t he?”

  “Youzu betta go ova to your kid’s house. Sooner than later.”

  “I certainly don’t want to stay here alone tonight. But

  I’m too tired to drive.”

  Mas scratched his head. Oceanside was at least a good two- to three-hour drive during rush hour. Although he wanted to help, his help had limits—not beyond one-hour’s worth.

  “I could take the train and have my son fetch the car later. He comes once a week to the market, anyway,” she proposed.

  “Izu take you ova to Union Station.”

  Sonya met Mas’s eyes and she nodded. She limped to her bedroom, where a suitcase was already half filled.

  Before they left the bare ranch-style house, Sonya looked around wistfully. “A lot of memories here,” she murmured. “Memories of Jorg, too.”

  Her rumination reminded Mas of what his customers and Nisei women told him after Chizuko’s funeral: “You’ll always carry her memory in your heart” or “She’ll always be with you.”

  But the truth was, as time passed, a little of Chizuko faded with it. If Mas ever moved out of that McNally Street house, his once-intact family—as small as it was—might be forever obliterated. So he hung on to the past, at least the second-chance past in America. It hadn’t been all happy, but at least it was familiar.

  It only took Mas about a half an hour to drive the widow to downtown L.A. Traditional rush hour had officially ended, but these days, with all the downtown lofts and sports stadiums, the freeways could be jammed when you least expected it.

  “Oh, we’re here already.” The widow was also surprised when Mas stopped the Ford at the curb in front of a prettified Union Station. It always had been impressive, with its high ceilings, cool Spanish tile floor, and curved archways, but there had been a time when the historic building had become dingy, almost obsolete. Now, with light rail and subway tracks crisscrossing the county, the train station was in vogue and well maintained.

  He jumped out to help the hobbling Sonya, but by the time he reached the other side, she was ready to go with her suitcase.

  “You’re very worried about your friend, aren’t you?”

  Mas nodded.

  “You don’t think he took the dolls.”

  No. Mas spoke through his eyes, his pupils dark and solid in the diffused light emanating from the corner of the train station.

  “There’s someone who might be able to help you,” Sonya said. “Actually someone I’ve known a very long time. He was the police detective assigned to Jorg and Ike’s accident. Chuck Blanco. He doesn’t work for the police anymore. He’s an inspector on his own. But he still is keenly interested in what happened to Jorg.

  “You see, he doesn’t think it was an accident. He never did. I think he migh
t have even lost his job over Jorg and Ike’s case.”

  Mas felt as if freezing cold water was being poured over his head.

  “Anyway, about a year ago, I began receiving these strange postcards. Typewritten. All gibberish. I reported them to the local postal inspector, but he couldn’t do anything. They weren’t threatening. They just didn’t make sense. The same thing over and over again. Without a return address but a Phoenix postmark.

  “So I called Mr. Blanco. Not that he could do anything, but I thought he’d be interested. And he was. So I mailed off some of the postcards to him. Shortly thereafter, they stopped coming. But Mr. Blanco told me to inform him if anything unusual came up again.”

  “You tellsu him about dollsu?”

  The widow nodded her head. “Of course, first thing. Like I said, Mr. Blanco is very committed to finding out the truth about the car accident. Spoon never cared for him, however. She won’t talk to him. So I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention to her that I keep in touch with him.”

  Mas bit down on the right side of his lip. Too many secrets between supposed friends.

  A train must have just released carloads of commuters, because they poured out from the station, their briefcases swollen with tasks undone.

  “Find out who was sendin’ the cards?” Mas finally asked.

  “Never did. I almost completely forgot about them, in fact. Then I came across one this week when I was packing. This time I understood the word that was typed.” The widow rummaged through her purse and presented a bent postcard to Mas. In the darkness and without his glasses, Mas couldn’t make out the words, only that they were typewritten.

  Sonya stepped in to interpret. “HINA, it says. HINA, almost twenty times over.”

  Hina. Had it been some strange coincidence? Why had someone written a word referring to the Girls’ Day dolls? And a year ago, much less? Mas was troubled and a bit spooked. Dolls sometimes seemed to be inhabited by spirits—like those in the Hina House in San Diego. Had Ike’s hina dolls somehow inspired a message? No, that was too ridiculous to consider.