Under the Silk Hibiscus

by Alice J. Wisler

  Chapter Thirty-one

  And then one day at the end of July, when the lavender hibiscuses were at their height in blooms, my life changed again. And it was the fourth time in my life to become flabbergasted. Since getting back to San Jose, Papa’s return to us, Lucy’s first phone call, and Mekley’s visit had all caught me off-guard as unexpected surprises. Another was about to happen.

  I was with a customer who was interested in buying a carton of pickled beets. I wasn’t sure what one needed with so many beets, but this customer was from out of town and heading east and said she was delighted to see beets for sale. “Beets are rich in vitamins,” she said. “Did you know that?”

  I did, as a matter of fact, and told her so. I was sure that Mrs. Hirayama, who had picked and pickled the beets in a vinegar-and-onion brine, knew that, too.

  “You people have been picking sugar beets for a long time, haven’t you?”

  I knew she meant well, but even so, heat rose from my face. She was a customer; I needed to hold it together. “I think many people have been picking all sorts of things for a long time,” I said.

  “Ah, yes,” she agreed. “I am grateful for everyone’s hard labor.”

  As I rang up the woman’s purchase, I forced a smile, took her money, and thanked her for shopping at our store. She turned to go, just when the door’s bell chimed. I looked at the door and nearly lost my breath.

  There stood Lucy! There she was with her hair cut short like it was on the cover of her album. It was not dyed blond, but black, just as black as I remembered it.

  She made her way toward me, as I stood paralyzed. Halfway across the floor, she said, “Hello, Nathan. Quite a shop you have here.”

  I managed to get from behind the counter, and as we met, her arms wrapped around me in a tight embrace.

  I found my voice. “What are you doing in town?”

  She stepped back and smiled. “You look handsome as ever.”

  Again I asked, “What are you doing in town? Staying at your folks?”

  “Just a visit. Show me around the store. Mom said you had a grand opening.”

  I showed her the jars of pickled produce, the knitted scarves, the handkerchiefs, carefully stitched with flowers, the rack of greeting cards, comic books, and candy. “Tom said a store wasn’t a store without comic books and candy.”

  “I’d have to agree.”

  There was something different about her. I watched as she made her way around the store alone. A customer entered to buy some fresh plums; plums brought in from the Yanagi orchard outside of San Jose.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” she said to me. She’d been in before, even been at Heart Mountain with us, but I couldn’t recall her name.

  “Is it Lucy?” the woman asked, as she spotted Lucy looking over greeting cards.

  “Yes. Hello, Mrs. Nita.”

  “Well, when did you get into town?”

  “Last night.”

  “Where are you living nowadays? Still in New York?” She said New York with a slight air to her tone, making the name of the city sound posh.

  “Yes.” Lucy smiled, but it wasn’t one of her genuine ones. She was guarded.

  I didn’t care how guarded she intended to be. Once Mrs. Nita walked out of the shop with her plums, I walked over to Lucy. “How is it, really, in New York?”

  “Oh, you know. Busy. Lots of people. Manhattan is crowded compared to here.”

  “How are you, really?”

  She lowered her eyes and studied the card in her hand. “Get well soon,” she read from it. “That’s what we all need, isn’t it?”

  Panic weaved into my throat. “You’re not ill, are you?”

  With her eyes still lowered, she said, “In a way, aren’t we all? I mean, we’re all dying.”

  I grabbed her arm, right at the shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  She lifted her eyes then. Looking me in the face, she said, “Nathan.”

  Something about the way she said it, I knew. She was in trouble. She had been in Manhattan. All sorts of things went on there. There was the mob; there was high society folk, there was pregnancy. “Lucy?”

  Leaning against my chest, she said, “I am home now.”

  I wanted to ask her all the questions buzzing in my mind. I wanted to tell her about Mekley’s visit and the pocket watch, that I knew the truth—that I knew she and Ken had not been honest with me. But for those few moments, I just let her lean close to my heart.

  When a truck pulled up and one of my vendors dropped off crates of raspberries and pears, I took inventory. After writing down the number of crates he had on a form—a form specifically drawn up for our vendors—I asked him to sign at the bottom of the page.

  Since we had no typewriter, and my aunt needed one, she went to the library. While Emi read picture books, Aunt Kazuko asked to borrow the library’s Underwood.

  She created a sheet for me to use in the shop. “This will keep everybody in the know,” she said when she came home and handed it to me. And of course, that is what we all wanted—everybody to be in the know. All kidding aside, I appreciated my aunt’s knowledge about accounting and how to keep the checks and balances in place. I wanted happy vendors as they were the heart and soul of Everything But Buttons.

  I wanted more time alone with Lucy, but vendors and customers kept entering, needing my attention. As I dealt with them, Lucy stood close by, making it hard for me to concentrate on candy bars and pickled beets.

  After a while, she said, “You’re busy. I’ll come by later.”

  “Tonight,” I called out as she headed toward the door. “Meet me here at five. We can get something to eat.”

  She came by a little before five, but said she couldn’t stay. “I promised my mom I would eat dinner with her and Dad.”

  “Well, can you talk a bit before you have to go?”

  “Sure.”

  Each weekday I closed the shop at five, and today, when the old clock on the wall ticked toward five, I thought of all the days I stood at the door with the key in my hand, wishing that Lucy were here to walk home with me. Now here she was—here, in the flesh. But instead of feeling euphoria, worry spread over my chest. Be in control, I told myself. You have to know the truth even if it hurts you.

  I offered her the one chair in the shop, and she sat. I leaned against the counter and then turned a crate upside down and sat across from her on it. “So what have you been up to?” I asked. I figured I would start with the present and let it lead to the past. I was desperate to hear her side of the story with Mekley.

  “It’s been okay.” As she brushed hair off her face and tucked a few strands behind her ear, I noticed a mark just below her ear on her jaw line.

  “How did that happen?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I stood and walked over to her. Placing my hand on her jaw, I saw a jagged indentation—an imprint in her skin.

  She pulled my hand from her face. “I was with my record producer. He got mad one night and . . . he . . .”

  “What about Mekley?”

  “Mekley?”

  “Yeah. In Heart Mountain.”

  “He was forceful, too. But drunk. Did Ken tell you what happened?”

  “No. I haven’t spoken to Ken since he left camp.”

  “I haven’t heard from him in over a year,” she said. “I hope he’s all right.”

  “Whose idea was it to give Mekley the watch?”

  “Ken’s.” Her voice was low. “I should go.”

  But she didn’t leave. She sat and looked at her hands.

  “Lucy, you have to tell me. How bad can it be?”

  “What Ken and I did wasn’t right, Nathan. But Mekley was a soldier, and he threatened us.”

  “Threatened you?”

  “Yes. He said that unless I spent the night with him, he would tell the camp authorities about Ken.”

  “Tell them what? They knew he had a gang.”

  “It wasn’t the gang. He was bringing whiske
y into camp. He bought bottles of it from Mekley who got it from either Cody or Powell. Then Ken sold those bottles to other internees for about twice the cost. He had a regular business going on.”

  “Were Mekley and Ken friends?”

  “At first they were. It started out that Mekley would get cigarettes and Cokes for Ken. He also let Ken use a room in one of the buildings as a club house.”

  I wondered how much more of the story she was going to unveil. I didn’t have to wait long.

  Softly, she said, “Mekley came onto me. ‘How much do I have to pay you for her?’ he asked Ken one night. And after that Ken was mad at him and wanted him away from me. But Mekley didn’t listen.”

  Suddenly her eyes filled and she said, “Ken and I knew that we had dug a big hole. We were in deep. Really, Mekley was the one who should have been behind bars. He harassed me. I have let a lot of men harass me, Nathan. I’m not proud of that. I am learning to stick up for myself.” She wiped her tears, and although I so wanted to rush over to her and tell her that it was all right now, I couldn’t.

  “Just what did Mekley do?” I asked.

  “He approached me one night when he had been drinking. Ken had been drinking, too. Mekley was like an animal, and Ken told him to stop. Ken had to literally pull him off of me. Of course, Ken had no power over an American soldier. So to keep Mekley away from me forever, he promised him the pocket watch. Your family’s heirloom. He told the story behind it and how valuable the watch was. Mekley agreed. Ken then had a guy who wanted to be in their gang steal it from your barracks so that it would look like theft. Ken couldn’t let on what really happened. Can you imagine? People would be so infuriated with him for trading his family heirloom to a soldier. Especially to Mekley, the most vile of all soldiers. And I certainly didn’t want my reputation ruined by letting people know I’d been accosted by a man.”

  Accosted seemed a strange word to use in this case. “You were in danger. Mekley was drunk.” I remembered how Mekley had admitted to me during his visit that he had been drunk. “He could have raped you.”

  She nodded. “That’s why I will always be thankful to Ken.”

  I wondered then. Did she still love him? Was she missing him, as she had in camp when he’d left to enlist?

  “I’ve had lots of time to think,” she said. “I knew we hurt you. I hated that because of us you had to be in jail.”

  I felt a surge of anger at her, at Mekley, but most of all at my brother. He was family. He should have protected me, stood up for me. But I didn’t want this time with Lucy to be consumed with frustration over Ken. She was here. Here with me. How long had I waited for this time? Lightly, I said, “So why Lucy Heart?”

  She laughed. “Do you like it?”

  I wanted to laugh with her. But laughter was far from me and seemed inappropriate. There was so much I wanted to know, so much only she could tell me. “Why the blonde hair?”

  “They said no one would buy an album from an Asian. That’s what I was told. So my producer decided that I should change my looks. We went to a hair salon where they dyed my hair platinum blonde. My producer—”

  “Does he have a name?” I was tired of her using the words my and producer together as though she was married to him and calling him my husband.

  “Yes. It’s Donovan. He got me my first record deal.”

  “So they liked your voice, but not your face.”

  “Well . . . I guess you could say that.”

  “Did Donavan like you?”

  “He drank a lot. He got angry. He took it out on me.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Donovan?” She looked puzzled by my question.

  “Yes, your producer.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “How many stitches in that cut?” Now that I had seen the scar, it was impossible not to notice it. From my guess, it was about an-inch-and-a-half long.

  “Thirty-three.”

  I hated that she knew the number—that the number flowed so easily from her mouth. Those stitches were going to be with her forever, part of her identity, like her name. If only she’d stayed, we could have left camp together after the war. In my care, I would have kept her safe; there would be no scar.

  She left the chair and circled around the shop. “You were so responsible. In spite of everything, you were in charge. Wounded, but reliable.”

  “Wounded?” The word was not one that held strength or honor. Wounded was what happened to soldiers and baby birds.

  “It’s not so bad to be wounded. When you really open your eyes, we all are. Every single one of us.” She forced a small smile. “I know I’m wounded. I’m really not as serene as my songs. I used to believe that God wouldn’t let His people get caught up in situations that would harm them. But now I know that sometimes it’s far easier to ignore His still small voice and just plow through. Just do what we want. It’s that human will thing. He lets us fall when we insist we want our way.”

  I had interrogated her enough. When I looked into her eyes, I saw how weary they looked. The liveliness they once held was gone. “I’m glad you’re safe,” I said at last.

  She leaned against me for a second, and then without warning, lifted her mouth and kissed my lips.

  Without a word, she turned, and left the shop.

  I didn’t sleep much that night and by morning I was as confused as ever. Although her kiss had been pleasant, it seemed too quick, too spontaneous, and without any explanation. What did it mean for her to have kissed me? What did it mean to me?

  “Who is she?” I asked aloud, just before daybreak. Who was this Lucy Heart? Certainly, she wasn’t the Fusou of camp.

  But I was not the Nathan of camp either.

  Adversity caused us to change, some for the better, some not. How could I hold anything against the girl who had kept me sane with her soprano voice and songs with words that soothed my soul? How could I deny her the attention she deserved?

  Yet, I wondered.

  Finally, at the end of the day, I asked God what to do. He was silent, as He often is. I waited for Him to tell me to consider a real romantic relationship with her. Perhaps He’d show me by sending me a bunch of hearts or some passage about love. Some sign. Humans are forever asking God for signs. We don’t often think that sometimes you just have to step out. Step out like a toddler learning to walk.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Lucy was still in town. I wasn’t sure for how long, and I didn’t want to miss out on a chance to spend time with her. I called her parents’ house and asked to speak to her.

  “Can we go out to talk somewhere? Grab something to eat?” I asked. I sounded confident, casual. Over the years I had often thought about how I’d ask her on a date. None of my scenarios had been like this. In each one, I was nervous, uncertain of her response. But that Saturday morning, I knew she would say yes.

  “Yes, sure we can,” she said.

  I didn’t want to see a movie. I wanted to sit across from her, stare at her, and talk with her. “Can you meet me for dinner at that little hamburger shop near Main Street?” Last I recall, there were no anti-Japanese signs in the windows.

  “Barry’s?” she asked.

  “Is that what it’s called?” Hearing Barry made me think of Barry Kubo. I made a mental note that I owed him a letter, and this time I would have lots of good news to fill it with. “Meet me there at six,” I said.

  I was five minutes early. She was late, apologetic. I didn’t care. She was here with me, and as we sat across from each other at a table, I thanked God for this gift.

  “I was always mesmerized by you,” she said, after the waitress took our orders.

  I felt my heart take wings and flutter against my chest. “Really? Why?”

  “You were the strong one, always thinking, always taking care of your mom and family. You were the backbone.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Once the words left my mouth, I thought of how old they sounded, like I was some a
ged man talking, one who should be hunched over, adjusting his hearing aid. Ken had accused me of being old before my time. Lighten up, Nobu!

  Here she was. Here we were. And all I could think about was that day when I’d approached her and boldly asked her why she had wanted to be called Lucy. “Do you remember when I asked you why you wanted to be called Lucy?”

  “Yes. You told me that I should go by Fusou. You told me that Fusou suited me. I have always wanted to know since that time how a name comes to suit a person.”

  “I guess you become the name. You fit into it over the years.”

  She reached for my hand. Her fingers felt like silk, like the silk from a kimono Mama had worn on New Year’s Day. “I have admired you for a long time,” she said.

  “Why?” When I looked into her eyes, I was afraid I might see doubt. But her face was serene, beautiful, youthful. Yet the new addition of that scar bothered me. I looked away, pretending that I wanted to ask our waitress for another soda. The truth was, that scar bothered me as well as what it stood for. Being jealous of Ken was one thing, but now being jealous of a man I had never met, now that was something new for me.

  The waitress brought us Cokes. I waited till she left our table to ask Lucy, “What did he use?”

  “What?”

  I gestured toward the scar on her jaw.

  “His fist.”

  “And he’s still your producer?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.” She dropped her gaze and looked at her glass of soda.

  “Did you go to the police?”

  “For what?”

  “To tell them that he hit you.”

  “No, a neighbor took me to the ER.”

  “Did they ask what had happened?”

  “I told them that I had fallen and hit a rail outside my aunt and uncle’s apartment building.”

  “You lied.”

  “Yes.” Quickly she said, “No.”

  “Yes and no?”

  “When he hit me, I fell and cut my jaw against the brick fireplace in his house. So technically, I did fall.”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  She reached across the table and found my hand. “Nathan, please. It doesn’t matter anymore.”