All Good Women

by Valerie Miner

  Maybe she simply looked at them differently, being surrounded by Japanese faces for months. Until recently, she had considered herself American. However these days, because of her exclusion and her inclusion, she was beginning to understand how Japanese she was — in her facial expressions, in her gestures, in her values. At first she had resisted this, recalling Papa’s long lectures about their equality with Caucasians. Then she began to enjoy the Japanese characteristics, to relax into them. She was not, as Papa had promised, an average American. It was an odd sensation — to discover suddenly that you’re not only not who you thought you were when growing up but that you’re who you thought you weren’t. She reached into her purse for a pen and made a couple of notes.

  Yet people kept trying to deny that things had changed irrevocably. She considered the story Roy told about this Nisei friend at Berkeley who won the university medal, but who, because he was in camp, couldn’t receive it. The university official simply announced that he had been called elsewhere by his country. Now what was that supposed to mean? Is this the way history got written? She resolved again to revise that article and get it published.

  Roy took off his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief. She looked more closely and saw that he was crying. Yes, it was a horrible story and, if she had been concentrating more, she would have been crying too. No wonder Teddy had not wanted to see the movie two years ago.

  It was late afternoon and Wanda was huddled next to the radio, furiously making notes on a news report about the internment. Mama was sitting at the table, staring across the camp and Betty lay on the cot, reading. Wanda wanted to get down every word, to quote the blatant propaganda, to compare the news coverage about these ‘havens’ to the reality.

  ‘It is essential that Americans learn to distinguish between our loyal Chinese friends and people of Japanese ancestry. Many Chinese merchants have alerted Americans with signs in their shop windows, declaring “Chinese” or “Born in Hong Kong”. But there are subtle differences in appearance and demeanor between the two separate races …’

  Wanda turned the page, scribbling furiously. Yes, this would be perfect as the opening to her piece, to use their own words to hang them. To show how they develop a climate of hysteria among Caucasians — and how all sense of proportion got lost.

  Wanda thought back to this morning’s interview with Mrs Omi, who almost lost her son at the haphazard dispensary that passed for medical care at this place. If Mrs Omi hadn’t been right there, complaining until her voice gave out, little James would have died. Wanda had much more documentation now than when she submitted the article before. They wouldn’t be able to reject it again.

  ‘Enough noise.’

  Had Mama said noise or news? Wanda sighed. ‘Just a few more minutes, please. It’s really important.’

  ‘Write, write.’ The older woman closed her eyes. ‘For what good?’

  Wanda clenched her teeth. It was hard enough to be rejected by these magazine editors. But the very act of writing seemed like a form of lunacy or betrayal to her mother. Lunacy because writing took so long and brought no money. Betrayal because it meant embracing a language Mama hardly ever spoke. Never before had Wanda realized how much encouragement and support she had had from the girls on Stockton Street.

  ‘Just a few more minutes, Mama.’

  Wanda wrote faster now, trying to remember what the announcer said while Mama was talking. Yes, this would be the perfect indictment.

  ‘Hey.’ Howard walked in. ‘Time for the ball scores. What are you listening to this stuff for?’

  ‘Leave me alone.’ Wanda lost her temper. ‘Just leave me alone.’ Her voice rose uncontrollably.

  Mrs Nakatani stood, moved between them and switched off the radio. ‘Enough. Enough for the whole night!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ wailed Betty, slamming her book shut. ‘My show’s on tonight. See what you’ve done, Wanda.’

  Wanda hadn’t expected a visitor, because the three girls had just come the previous week. But one afternoon, she got word that somebody was waiting for her at the grandstand.

  Wanda noticed Moira sitting off on her own, surrounded by packages, filing her nails and watching the crowds.

  ‘Boo.’

  ‘Oh, hiya.’ Moira stood up and hugged Wanda. ‘This is some parade.’ She hated her own false cheer.

  ‘Yes.’ Wanda smiled, glad to see that Mrs Nakamura’s friend had made it up from Fresno. ‘How are you? Was it a long wait today?’

  ‘Two hours, not as bad as last time.’ Moira shrugged. ‘Teddy and Ann send their love and,’ she pointed to the boxes, ‘some supplies.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have.’ Wanda shook her head, although she knew that Betty would be grateful for the candy and Mama would appreciate the fruit the girls always sent. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘This is completely ridiculous, locking you up like this. I swear, I almost baked a cake with a saw inside, except that you know my baking …’ She trailed off, ashamed at her pathetic attempt at humor. ‘So how’s it going? How’s that article? Did you send it out again?’

  ‘Yes.’ Wanda’s face was impassive. ‘Got it back just this morning, with a big round coffee stain on page four, so I know that they at least read that far. This is the seventh rejection.’

  ‘Oh, no, kid, I’m sorry. Sounds like me and Pan-O-Rama Studios. But this is crazy. It was a good article; we all thought so.’ Actually, she thought Wanda was brave and crazy. Brave to say those things. Crazy to think any magazine would print them.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Wanda knew that she shouldn’t take the rejection personally. She found it hard to talk about her journalism. Should she tell Moira that she had gone back to writing Haiku? No, she would ask to read the poems. ‘What’s happening at Pan-O-Rama?’

  ‘Nothing much. Except I’m thinking about leaving.’

  Wanda frowned.

  ‘I’m thinking of getting one of those good paying jobs in the war plants.’ Moira blushed and then spoke more rapidly. ‘I don’t know, I’m not doing anything useful, typing for second-rate movie producers. And I’ve never been much of an office girl, as you know. I kind of fancy working with my hands — do you think that sounds funny?’

  ‘Nothing you do would surprise me.’ Wanda smiled. ‘But you’re all nerves.’

  ‘It’s Randy. He doesn’t like the idea. Doesn’t say why. Usually, his talk just makes me mad. But I can tell he’s serious about this and I feel torn.’ Christ, her problems were nothing compared to Wanda’s. How could she go on like this?

  Wanda looked at her friend and considered that Moira was always trying to please someone. Even her acting seemed to be that, reaching out to an audience and winning appreciation. ‘Well, if you really want to, Moi, I don’t see why you shouldn’t.’

  Moira nodded. ‘I’m not very independent sometimes. Oh, well, here I am talking about myself again. You have any idea when they’re going to ship you out to a more permanent place?’

  ‘September — that’s the rumor. And people are talking about Utah or Arizona.’ She thought about the Jodes riding their truck through the Southwest. She kept confusing Henry Fonda with Hank Fielding. ‘But we’re the last to be told.’

  ‘Arizona!’ Moira’s eyes widened. ‘That’s pretty far.’

  ‘Full of scorpions, I hear,’ Wanda said and watched Moira shiver. She was ashamed for tormenting poor Moira, who had driven all the way down here and then waited in line for two hours. ‘Say, did you bring anything we could share right now?’

  ‘Well, I did take the precaution,’ Moira regained her equilibrium, ‘of bringing two bottles of Coca Cola.’

  At four o’clock, Wanda accompanied Moira to the gate. She stood there, waving good-bye, as Moira walked off to Randy’s car. Rearranging the packages in her arms, Wanda smiled at the thought of Moira wearing overalls and riveting. Yes, Moi would be the most popular girl in the factory.
Dear, adventurous, yet sometimes too tentative Moira. But — Wanda’s ankle twisted on a rock and she almost dropped one of the packages — but Moira would be making bombs.

  Chapter Eleven

  Summer 1942, San Francisco

  FIRST AMERICAN AIR RAIDS AGAINST GERMANY

  AMERICAN MARINES CAPTURE GUADALCANAL AIRFIELD

  BRAZIL DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY

  US NAVY WAVES ESTABLISHED

  THE FOG HUGGED LOW all morning as Ann and Teddy worked in the garden. They hadn’t exchanged more than five sentences. Like so many experiences with Teddy, thought Ann, this was a meditative exercise.

  Ann sat back on her heels and observed the small garden with a breath of satisfaction. This summer, they had produced all their vegetables. She had to smile at the radio blaring from the kitchen where Moira was baking. Although she could do without the noise, Ann was glad it was just she and Teddy in the garden. Working quietly like this brought a degree of tranquility.

  Gardening was a whole different experience when Moira joined them. She would interrupt every five minutes to describe a tomato hornworm or to scream when she had accidentally bisected a slug. Moira had bowed out of the morning’s planting, saying that her two left hands were better put to use in the kitchen. Ann had nodded, to keep her agreement low key. Typically, Teddy had encouraged Moira, ‘You’ll never learn if you don’t try.’

  Ann looked at Teddy who was softly whistling a tune she presumed to be from Oklahoma. Teddy hummed or whistled it often and Ann never thought to ask. Teddy wasn’t a person who invited asking, despite her attentions to other people. It was easy to be fooled by her simplicity, which had been finely honed from painful wisdom and a basic optimism about human nature. When Teddy did talk, Ann could still be surprised by her friend’s intelligence, which was expressed with dry humor and caught you coming around the corner. It was far too easy to lose Teddy in the veils of her own modesty. She knew what was going on. She just wasn’t showy about her ideas the way Ann knew she, herself, could be. Ann sometimes saw her mind as a shield against the world while she guessed that Teddy used hers as a source of pleasure.

  Suddenly conscious of her long rest, Ann scooped through the damp, black earth with her trowel and carefully laid the lettuce plant in a hole. It had been Wanda’s idea to sprout the seeds in containers outside their sunny kitchen window. Too bad she wasn’t here to watch the lettuce thrive. Well, Ann resolved, she would write to Wanda and describe how well the plan worked. Wanda wasn’t dead, Ann reminded herself, and it was more useful to think about visiting her in camp than to moon like this. Ann lifted another plant and dusted soil from the dangling web of roots. As she set it down, she wondered if it would be accepted or rejected by the earth. Teddy didn’t seem bothered by such questions. Ann looked over at her friend, whose movements had a graceful consistency no matter where she worked. Of course Teddy wasn’t a saint, Ann reminded herself, she never would have been able to tolerate that. At first her friend’s bottomless generosity made Ann feel edgy. Teddy’s attention to her family made Ann’s own desperate attempts at independence seem childish. But then she began to see that Teddy’s responsibility for the rest of the world derived from a panic about losing control. Ann was familiar with such compulsion from Papa. While no one could approach his hubris, Teddy certainly had big pride.

  ‘How’s the Victory Garden?’ Angela Bertoli called over the fence. Her hair was set in a new style today, pinned on the sides and showing more of her dark, open face.

  Teddy stopped whistling, as if she had been roused from a heavy sleep.

  ‘Aren’t you ever gonna learn any new tunes?’

  Ann looked up and noticed how Angela enjoyed flustering Teddy and how Teddy seemed to like it. Moira was wrong — Angela didn’t boss Teddy. She teased her.

  ‘Last week the snails won the biggest victory,’ said Teddy.

  ‘Ann, Teddy,’ Moira called from the kitchen. ‘Soup’s ready.’

  Ann stood slowly, first straightening her knees, then, with a hand on the base of her spine, her back. Ridiculous behavior for someone her age.

  Teddy was still listening to Angela. ‘Well, I guess I don’t need to worry about you driving Papa out of business with the garden.’

  ‘And just what’s wrong with our garden?’ Teddy rose to her feet in one long, fluid movement.

  ‘Nothing that a little Tuscan knowhow couldn’t cure.’

  ‘Ann, Teddy.’ Moira’s voice was louder. ‘There’s a letter from Wanda. And the soup’s getting cold.’

  Ann collected the trowels and forks and waved her gloves to Moira. ‘Just a sec.’

  ‘Well.’ Teddy cleared her throat. ‘Pride goeth before the fall and look what happened to Rome.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have happened to Tuscany,’ laughed Angela.

  Teddy was torn between Moira’s increasingly urgent voice and her desire to pass time with Angela. She wanted to invite their neighbor to lunch as would come naturally in Oklahoma. But she knew this wasn’t Moira’s way.

  ‘I don’t mean to interrupt your family meal,’ said Angela. ‘Are we still set for the movies Friday? I got news, but it’ll wait till then.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Teddy was uneasy. What news. Why did she have to wait for Friday? Why was Angela always trailing little mysteries?

  ‘Right then. Six o’clock, my house?’

  Teddy turned to see Ann had already rinsed off the tools and coiled the hose neatly beneath the tap. She hurried into the kitchen, slapping dirt from her gloves, thinking how much simpler life had seemed last year.

  Moira wasn’t kidding about the soup, thought Ann. It was turning cold here on the table in these horrible white bowls. She stared grimly at the unimposing stack of sliced white bread and the mound of oleomargarine. Even Moira could serve a more tempting meal than this. She must be in a snit.

  Moira sat down and began to eat the soup with gusto. Ann reminded herself that the Scots didn’t put a premium on cooking. Ordinarily she didn’t mind Campbell’s soup, but Campbell’s chicken soup was an affront. Compared to Mama’s nurturing chicken soup with lokschen, this was salty, greasy water — all the more offensive when tepid.

  Teddy was the last to sit. Aware of Moira’s irritation at her lateness and Ann’s disappointment in the lunch, she swivelled around in search of distraction. ‘You haven’t opened the letter.’ She reached for the white envelope addressed, ‘The Ladies’. ‘Nice of you to wait, Moi.’

  Moira arched a thin eyebrow so high that it disappeared beneath her curly bangs. ‘The soup’s getting cold.’

  Teddy regarded the still, beige substance in the white porcelain bowl. Not a trace of steam. She averted her eyes from Ann, afraid they might burst out laughing.

  ‘Right.’ She lifted the spoon to her mouth. ‘Mmmm, Campbell’s Chicken, my favorite.’ As happened often when she was telling the truth, she knew she was choosing between her two friends. Moira relaxed against the chair. Teddy watched her face soften and her eyes regain their humor. Moira was a pretty girl, all right, especially without all that make-up she wore to work. Teddy finished the soup and consumed three slices of bread and marg. She looked around to find the others waiting for her to finish. ‘May I?’ She picked up the letter and began to read.

  … Well, it gets a little less horrible day by day. I think of this place as a lunar outpost travelling too close to the sun. The heat, you wouldn’t believe the heat some days. Then the fog turns it cold as Antarctica.

  For the young kids, it’s not quite so bad, perhaps, with everything so rough and strange and dirty. But for Mama and the Nakashimas and Roy’s parents, who pulled themselves out of poverty, it’s a nightmare. The worst part, I suppose, was having to clean the filth out of these horse stalls. All those niggling fears I’ve ever had about American prejudice turned to neon.

  Ann stretched her neck and then rose to fill the kettle. ‘Three
coffees?’

  They nodded.

  ‘It’s right she’s angry,’ Ann flared. ‘It’s abominable what they’re doing to her people.’

  ‘Who’s they?’ asked Moira. ‘You mean we, what we’re doing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ann agreed. ‘Did you hear about those two old Japanese men from Los Angeles who were arrested on sedition charges for “avoidance of the English language”?’

  ‘Shall I continue?’ Teddy cleared her throat.

  ‘Yes,’ said Moira.

  But the humiliation. They act as if we’re freeloaders, here to vacation at government expense. When Mr Watanabe complained about the food — there were maggots in the hamburger meat! — he was told, ‘beggars can’t be choosers.’ Can you believe it?

  Moira found it impossible to sit still. She cleared the table. ‘Next thing we’ll hear is that Miss Fargo has gone there to teach typing and soufflé-making.’

  Ann poured the coffee. Once they were settled again, Teddy continued.

  Sometimes Roy and I walk to the edge of camp to watch the sunset. Usually, this is a peaceful, relatively private time, but last week, I started to see explosions in those colors. Red, orange, yellow fire from bombs. I try not to dwell on it. I try not to think about my grandparents in Yokohama. I try to remember that our sunset is their sunrise and I hope they will pass a peaceful day and a quiet night.

  No word yet on the article. Must say I’m getting a little discouraged. I’m thinking of doing some kind of teaching once we get to the permanent camp — permanent­ camp! — I can’t believe I’m talking like this. The pay is a step higher than my canteen work, so I should be making $16 a month. Well, here I am going on about myself. How are all of you? Your Mama, Ann, I hope there’s some improvement. And how’s the Emporium, Teddy? Moira, what’s happened with the factory or shipyard?

  Teddy dropped the letter on the table. Both she and Ann stared at Moira who was sucking in her lower lip.