Under the Silk Hibiscus

by Alice J. Wisler

  “You know our mother did.”

  “You mean Mama?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Her name is Mama,” my sister said with great emphasis. “Ma-ma.”

  “I know.”

  “Well then, don’t call her mother.”

  “Right.”

  “Guess what, Nathan?”

  “What?”

  “Mama loves you.”

  A lump formed in my throat and, although I swallowed hard a couple of times, it wouldn’t go away.

  “Mama loves you so much.”

  “I know. She loves you, too.”

  “She’s with God, right?”

  I fought the tears that were edging their way toward my eyes. I could feel them creeping in, I was aware of their urgency to take over. They could not, I would not let them. I cleared my throat. “Yes. That’s right. She’s with God.”

  “And angels.”

  “Yes, and angels.” Even the ones who carried her to Heaven.

  “Wow, she must be happy.” And with that, Emi pressed an index finger to the D key and let the sound from it echo throughout the house.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Aunt Kazuko told me that friends from Second Street Church wanted a general store. “So you make one,” she told me.

  I told her that perhaps a fish market would help give Papa that “pep” to get back to who he once was. When I used the word pep, she smiled.

  “So you talking like me now?” She gave me a light pat on my back, but her smile faded. “I think you need to just let your papa do what he needs to do. You own the shop you want to run. I think general store is best.”

  “Why?”

  “People at church say they have no place to sell what they grow or make. Also we need this store that sells things.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Like matches and towels.”

  “Matches and towels?”

  “Yes, everybody needs a match to light a stove or a cigarette. Everybody needs a towel after a bath.”

  “Practical items,” I mused.

  “You can call them that. Now help me choose which dress to wear on Easter.”

  When I went to the Easter service with my aunt, Tom, and Emi, I suggested that we sit in the back pew. But my aunt marched up to the front row, introducing me to all her new friends. “He is opening a general store,” she told them.

  Before the first hymn, three men came over to me and introduced themselves.

  “If only we had a place to sell our produce, then life would be so much better,” one with a wiry moustache told me.

  “I make pickles and need a place to sell them,” said a man in a dark suit.

  Even a woman tapped me on the shoulder to say, “I can vegetables from our garden and also my husband is a cab driver and says people ask if our town has a general store. A place we can sell everything.”

  I was about to ask if she knew of a place I could rent for a store like that, when I saw a young woman walking down the aisle. She paused to smile at me. Then she sat in a pew to the left of us so that all I could see was the side of her face. She had on a faded yellow hat, one of those with a fake flower sewn to the side. Her dress matched the hat, dotted with yellow rose buds. I thought of another girl in a dress the same color, only the flowers had been sunflowers.

  After the service, I was introduced to the girl in the yellow rosebud dress.

  “This is Jennifer,” her mother said. “Jennifer Tanaka.” Her mother had on a hat, too; a swooping peacock feather stemmed from its brim.

  Within five minutes I was pulled aside and asked if I would take this Jennifer out on a date.

  “A date?” The words caught in my throat. I’d never been on a date.

  “Yes,” said Jennifer’s mother. “I think that would be lovely.”

  At lunch, my aunt told me not to be so shocked, often people went to church and found their mates.

  The upcoming date was not on my mind as much as opening a general store. What would we call it? I knew that every store had to have a name, but our store could not have a Japanese name. We would have to call it something else. I looked in the mirror, one that had been given to us by some church group my aunt belonged to. I was American. Sure, I looked Asian, but I was a loyal American trying to start a new life.

  As I sat on my bed and thought, I heard a few sounds coming from the living room. Curious to see what was going on, I left my bedroom.

  There, with only the floor lamp to give her light, sat Emi at the piano bench, her legs swaying back and forth. She touched a key lightly, giggled, and repeated the action. No banging on it like other young children did. It was as if she knew how sacred an heirloom it was. Or perhaps she knew that my emotions weren’t able to handle any more obstacles. I needed calm. I needed a nice, hot ofuro, the traditional Japanese bath that my parents spoke fondly of soaking in after a long day.

  Tonight, as other nights, I had to settle for a lukewarm bath in an American tub instead.

  Days later on my way home from the grocer, I checked our mailbox, a metal contraption that leaned to the left and looked as though it wanted to topple over. Inside there was a letter. Each time I opened the box to get the mail, I always hoped for that one special letter. It would be addressed to me and contain pages and pages of how much she missed me and cared about me. I knew that this hope was far-fetched, but many of our hopes in life are unrealistic. We’d heard from Ken infrequently. Apparently, he was still in England and had met a British girl he liked, but that was not new news. When had my brother ever not had a girl or two he liked?

  Today’s mail was postmarked Raleigh, North Carolina. I put the sack of groceries on the porch, sat on a rocking chair, and read a short letter from Mr. Kubo.

  Dear Nathan, I hope this finds you well. I have been in touch with a few from camp and was told you and your family have a house now.

  We visited our son in Chicago at Christmas. His wife no longer steams milk for coffee but insists on a clothes dryer. Have you heard of these appliances? They are expensive, but so are the tastes of my daughter-in-law.

  Now we are back in Durham, N.C., where we work on a tobacco farm. Our house is a two-bedroom rented place. We are doing well and trying to put the war behind us. I hope you and your family are doing well. I hope Ken has returned safely from the war. He was brave to fight for his country.

  Come visit us sometime. You will love the way these Southerners speak our language.

  All the best to you, Barry Kubo

  I never knew his first name was Barry. As a breeze lingered in the air, I let my mind wander back to the days at Heart Mountain. I saw the mountain, that solid presence that changed with the weather. I saw the barracks—staunch and dark. I thought of peeling potatoes in the kitchen, of Tom’s pet toad Bogart, of Lucy’s songs. Yet today all I could associate with that cold and dusty place was sadness. Put it behind us. I’d take this man’s advice.

  Forget Lucy. Forget life before camp. All I had was now. And tonight I had said I’d go out with Jennifer Tanaka. A date.

  After dinner I sat with my aunt in the living room, as she drank a cup of tea and sewed buttons on men’s shirts. Papa took his cigarettes outside to smoke, and Tom lay on the couch and read a book. Emi asked me to help her play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the upright.

  After Emi seemed to get a grip on the rhythm of the melody, I stood.

  “Where you going?” asked Emi.

  “Out.”

  “Out?” said Aunt Kazuko.

  “Yes.” Suddenly I felt queasy. Why had I agreed to this date with Jennifer? The date was doomed, and I hadn’t even arrived at her door to pick her up yet.

  “Is tonight your date?” She smiled. When I only groaned, she said, “You not happy? Why you say yes then?”

  Why had I said yes to Mrs. Tanaka? Perhaps because there was some flicker of hope that I could be interested in someone local, instead of pining for a girl in New York City.

  “At hair sa
lon, I told Mrs. Tanaka that you are a good boy. Work hard. Finger to the bone. Sometimes you dilly-dally.”

  I imagined Mrs. Tanaka then asking if it would be all right to suggest that I take Jennifer out on a date.

  The sky was a creamy peach, as the sun set over San Jose. The colors reminded me of the silk hibiscus someone wore in her hair. I wondered what that someone was doing this night. As I walked to the Tanaka’s house, I heard my own voice whisper her name.

  When I knocked on the front door, Jennifer peered out the window. Shortly after that, her mother opened the door and welcomed me into the tiny living room where it was just she and I. I was hoping I would not have to be grilled by Mrs. Tanaka. As she asked me about the general shop—when would it open and would we carry fresh salmon, I wished Jennifer would appear. My shirt collar felt stiff and irritated the back of my neck.

  And then, down the stairs came Jennifer. She walked cautiously in a pair of heeled shoes and only smiled when she safely reached the bottom step.

  We walked to the theater to see The Big Sleep. I knew that Jennifer was the type of girl who went gooey-eyed over Humphrey Bogart. She had also said on the phone when I called to ask her out that she thought Lauren Bacall was a stunning actress. I had to agree.

  Inside the dark theater we sat together; Jennifer’s shoulder rubbed against my arm.

  Her hand sat on her lap, and I knew that if I had been any other red-blooded boy, I would have grasped that hand and held it all throughout the movie.

  “You really miss her, don’t you?” Jennifer said, as we walked back toward the five and dime for a soda.

  “What? Who?”

  “Your brother Tom told me about her. He said that you really liked her. She was at Heart Mountain with you, wasn’t she? I was in Gila in Arizona. I don’t know why we didn’t go to Heart Mountain. Did they really protest being drafted there?”

  My mind spun. I had never heard someone talk so much and not wait for any replies. Jennifer was like a non-stop wind-up toy.

  “Did you all have dances at your camp? I danced with this one boy who went off to fight. He died in Germany. He got blown up.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Yeah . . . well . . .” The next thing I knew she was blowing her nose into her pink and yellow embroidered handkerchief.

  I stopped on the sidewalk. “Are you all right?”

  Jennifer opened her purse and inserted her handkerchief back into it. “We can go now. You can take me home.”

  All I could see was Mrs. Tanaka’s disappointed face. “What will you tell your mom?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  It was then that I felt sorry for the girl in the pink dress with the shiny heeled shoes she’d bought for this occasion. Why couldn’t I like her? Why couldn’t life turn out to be like a storybook? Bogart and Bacall made it all look so easy.

  We walked to her house in silence. She told me that I didn’t need to walk her up to her front door. At the gate, she solemnly said, “Thank you.”

  Part of me was tempted to blurt that she was pretty in a simple way and that she did look good in those new shoes. But why? Why lie? It was best to just remain silent.

  At home, my aunt had finished sewing buttons. She was sleeping in a wingback chair, her head back, her mouth open. The shirts laid in a neat pile on the sofa. I thought of how it was her persistence in getting work to help pay our bills that had kept us afloat after our return to San Jose. Here she was, a woman who had been educated in Tokyo, an accountant. And now she was cleaning a house and sewing buttons so that we could pay our rent. I asked God to help me never think badly of her ever again.

  In the kitchen, I got a drink of water from the tap.

  “How was date?” I heard her ask from the living room.

  Entering the living room, I groaned.

  “That good, was it? Need some tea?”

  “No. No, thank you.”

  “Your father is asleep in Tom’s room. We got him to move in there. So I fix a bed for him with blankets. Tom is asleep, too, and Emi fall asleep at piano bench after she played and played.”

  “I guess I’ll go to bed, too.” I stretched for emphasis to show her that I was really tired and didn’t need any more conversation.

  But she didn’t seem to care how tired I was. “You know, Nathan, sometimes we have to let people go.”

  I had already lost my mother to death, my brother to some after-war business deal, and my father to his own demons. Who was she to lecture me on the need to let people go? I was trying my best to live with loss every day.

  “She is only living her dream. What can be wrong with that? We all have dreams and unless we go out into the wild, we never know if we can fly or not.”

  “She can do whatever she wants,” I said.

  “I think she wants to seek the glamour of living for a bit. You know, nice parties, elegance. Maybe.”

  “Maybe.” In my weariness, I realized that we were talking about Lucy without mentioning her name. I didn’t want to say her name, for whenever I did, a deep pain gnawed at my heart right at the place where I let her dwell. I suppose that my aunt knew that I didn’t want to hear her name, and I was grateful to her for that kindness.

  Lucy had one side of my heart, and the other side was where sorrow had taken permanent residence—spaces for Mama, Papa, and even Ken.

  I tried to recall the days before the war, before the tearing of our family bonds, back when Ken and I played baseball in the street with the other neighbor boys while their sisters looked on from the sidewalks.

  Back when life was safe and innocent. Before I knew that I had a heart that could be so easily broken.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Once, in camp, I saw a little girl of about three playing in the dust that blew over the terrain.

  Her grandma stood near her on the road and asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m catching the dust,” the little girl replied. “Do you wanna see?” She stopped running and walked toward her grandmother. Handing her the bucket, she said, “See?”

  The grandmother, a wiry woman with a scarf around her head, peered into the bucket and said, “What is it? I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s dust. Do you want some?”

  “Why? What can you do with dust?”

  The girl laughed and ran to catch some more inside her bucket. The wind whistled through her short black hair and ruffled the hem of her skirt. Yet she still laughed and said, “Come here, dust, come to me.”

  “What can you do with dust?”

  “Lots of things.”

  “What good is a bucket of dust?”

  The little girl didn’t mind the persistent questions. “Oba-chan (grandmommy),” she said, “you can put it on your table and it’s art. Or you can dance with it. You can talk to it. You can even sing to it.”

  At this point the grandmother had had enough. She coughed as the wind from Heart Mountain clouded the air with the thick dust. “Inside,” she commanded. “Now.”

  But the little girl just laughed again. “In a moment. Let me make sure I have enough dust.”

  “Your bucket is empty!” The grandma covered her mouth and made her way toward their barracks’ door.

  “No, it’s not,” said the girl. “My bucket is full. Open your eyes. It’s a dust pail.”

  I saw that little girl one other time in camp, and she was running down a dry road between two barracks with what everybody else called an empty bucket. But to her, the bucket was full.

  I often wondered how she managed to make the best of the dust while the rest of us in camp found no beauty in it and only complained how it swept into our barracks and coated our floors with films of ash.

  Perhaps the moral to that story was not to let the circumstances of life get the best of you. Perhaps it was being able to make the most of anything, even something as undesirable as dust.

  My aunt was in full force talking about how nice it would be to be able to help m
e run a general store. “I can do the accounting for you,” she said. “I can help you when I’m not cleaning or sewing. Why can’t you find a place to rent? I see empty places all the time.”

  Finally, I said, “I’ll tell you what. If the place on Empire Street is affordable, you can get your general store.”

  My aunt smiled. “I better call the prayer team.”

  I made a cup of coffee in the percolator that had been given to us by the wealthy family. They had cleaned out their kitchen and provided our family with a few sharp knives, a pot for cooking, a fancy egg-beater with a red handle, and other assorted items. They’d offered us a coffee table, and my aunt had brought it home in a cab, calling me from where the cab stopped in front of our house to come and help get the piece of furniture inside. We placed it in front of the sofa. My aunt put her photo album on the table, a few of her paperback romance novels, and Mama’s Bible.

  When Aunt Kazuko went to work after making a few calls to various women who made up her prayer team, I sat on the couch and drank my coffee.

  The photo album beckoned me, but not like an old friend, more like a questionable man selling encyclopedias door to door. At first I picked it up and ran my fingers across the hard binding. Then I opened it to the first page to see black and white photos of lots of Japanese people. There were solemn faces of relatives I had only heard about. Underneath each photo Aunt Kazuko had written the names of the people who were pictured.

  When I got to the photo of her and Mama standing outside their home in Nagano in about two feet of snow, I stopped to take it all in. Mama must have been about twelve then. My aunt, seven years older. They were both wearing snowshoes, the old rounded wooden ones with twine that I had seen once in a movie about ancient Japan. The caption under the photo read: Uncle Taro used his new camera to take our picture. Mama’s smile was wide; I traced my finger along the curve of her cheeks, the way they puffed up and produced a dimple in her left one. I closed my eyes and then shut the book.