She staggered into the hall, where a dim silhouette confronted her. Was she dreaming after all? A white dress flowed down to the woman’s ankles and her hair was coiled up around her head.
The woman in the photograph. Kaz’s dead mother.
A scream erupted in Lily’s throat.
The woman — the ghost — kept approaching. She touched Lily’s arm, her hand inhumanly cool and dry. “What’s the matter?”
“You’re — you’re —”
“My name is Haruko Uchida.” A formal, stiff bow.
“Kaz’s mother?”
“Heavens, no. I’m his aunt. My sister — God rest her soul — refused to leave Japan without me.”
“Nice to meet you,” Lily said shakily. “Uchida-san.” She’d said she was Kaz’s aunt, so maybe Obasan was the proper address…. Obasan, Aunt Haruko. She looked more like an Aunt Haruko. Metallic streaks in her braids made her look like an old woman though she couldn’t be much older than the doctor.
“Your poor cheek. It hurts, ne? I’ve a cream for it, Lily-san.” With her accent, she couldn’t get her tongue around the L’s, so it came out more like “Riri-san.” The name of a twin self, a demonic double.
That night, Lily dreamt she was back in the alley, crouched inside the dumpster, a massive rat scurrying overhead.
And then it jumped down on her. Its beady eyes glinted and its tiny fingernails rustled her hair, digging into her scalp.
The rat suddenly transformed into the guard — fat, florid cheeks sprouting whiskers. Fury surged into his face. Now he was on top of her, pulling up her skirt with his weirdly humanoid hands, the weight of his bristly belly thrusting into her, pinning her down.
She struggled to get away but couldn’t move, so she simply pressed her cheek to the ground, stared at the moonlit litter.
And there was Kaz: just watching, smiling a little.
The rat let out a grunt, as a burning fluid shot into her.
She screamed and woke up.
The doctor was right, there was an investigation. Two FBI agents came to his house. The younger one was thin and angular, his freckled skin covered in patches of heat rash. The older one smoked like a chimney and talked while barely moving his ashen lips. They insisted on speaking to Lily alone.
The doctor hovered in the doorway. What was he so worried about? Was it simply that he wanted to protect her from interrogation? Or was he concerned she’d incriminate Kaz?
Reluctantly, he left at last.
The men began asking her questions.
“A mask. He was wearing a black mask. I didn’t see anything.”
“What did this mask look like?” the younger agent pressed.
“A strip of black fabric tied around the guy’s face. Eyeholes cut out.”
“Colour of the eyes?”
“I don’t know. Brown, maybe.”
“What kind of eyes?” the older agent said.
“What do you mean?”
“Slanty, Oriental eyes?” His pudgy fingers stretched out his eyelids. “Or normal, like mine?”
His words hung in the air, bloated and ugly as his fingers.
Something was distracting her, messing up her vision: a moth must be responsible for that slip of shadow flitting about the corner of the room, and it was spreading its wings, speeding up, flapping manically, darkening the ceiling like a rain cloud. As she felt herself being pulled under its shadow, her body was losing all substance. She was a moth — she’d been reincarnated as a moth, just as her mother told her would happen one day. A rustle of wings, a plaintive susurration. A voice. The voice of the moth? Did moths have vocal cords? “Now look what you’ve done.” “Dummy, why did you have to say anything about eyeholes?” These voices weren’t gentle and moth-like, they were hard, mocking. If she said the guy had Caucasian eyes, they’d know he was one of the guards — who else could he be? And they’d bring all the guards into a room and force her to look each fellow in the eye, and when she couldn’t bring herself to accuse anyone, they’d say she was crazy, that she’d never been attacked at all….
The moth had slipped away. She craned her neck, stared into the upper reaches.
Now the men were looking at her like she’d just said something important. She tried to remember the last thing that had come out of her mouth.
“We appreciate all you’ve been through, miss. You’ve done the right thing in coming forward.”
But what had she given them? What had she said?
The moth swerved back, closer this time, and she grasped it in her hot palm.
It seemed that her whole life had been reduced to a series of fading-to-black moments, contrasted with the reverse: zooming-to-light. Aunt Haruko was sponging her forehead. The doctor was spooning lumpy rice gruel into her lips. The floorboards creaked, the walls breathing their damp, cool shadows.
Her old life under Aunt Tetsuko’s thumb had fallen away. Funny how that had happened. After all her griping about the inappropriateness of the doctor’s attentions, the old cow was relieved to wash her hands of Lily. One less mouth to feed. No one from the family even came to visit.
Her tongue felt fat and furry, her thoughts equally sluggish. The bottom of the ocean beckoned with every breath.
Then one day, Lily caught sight of a dim apparition behind the doctor. Excitement made her bolt up. Kaz? At first, she thought she was seeing double, until the two faces separated, moved apart. The doctor receded through the doorway.
Kaz kept standing there, hanging back, as though he couldn’t believe the evidence of her damaged face. “You have to believe me, Lily — I had no idea this would happen to you. Don’t worry. They’re just bruises and scrapes. They’ll heal.”
Turning on her side, she hid her bad cheek, unable to bear the weight of his stare any longer.
“If that monster wakes up, he’ll wish he hadn’t. We’ll finish him off. Should’ve finished him off the first time!”
A hot coal glowered inside her as she observed Kaz behaving as if he were the one who’d saved her — he who’d simply stood there, like a schoolboy, frozen with fear. Did he think she’d been unconscious the whole time? Yet what should she do? Confront him? He seemed immersed in the little world of his own creation. Maybe he actually believed the lie.
Maybe, just maybe, she could believe it, too. She found herself letting her mind turn inward to envision another, more favourable scenario, one where it was Kaz who’d intervened to beat her attacker to a pulp. He could’ve — would’ve — wouldn’t he? The heat of his passion, yes, she’d felt it before, and she could see it now, her imagination fleshing out the scene, adding key details — Kaz’s cheeks awash in fury, the blur of his flying fists — and the more she thought about it, the more she found herself wrapping her mind around the delusion. How much easier her world became if she allowed herself, just for a moment, to believe in this subtly — beautifully — altered reality.
Then the fantasy faded. Panic and anger resurged, though now in muted form. Her head was full of static, like a radio gone berserk. “What if that guard wakes up, Kaz? What if he remembers everything?”
“He won’t. And even if he does, he’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life, in no condition to talk to anybody.”
Kaz came to visit the next day, too. Crouched down at her bedside, his breath a hot tickle against her ear, he told her that the FBI had been asking questions about Kenny. Somehow they’d gotten it in their heads that he might be the attacker. “I don’t suppose you said anything that could point them in that direction?”
“I didn’t tell them anything! I just said the guy had on a mask.”
“So according to that story, it could’ve been Kenny.”
“It could’ve been anyone.” But how could she be sure of what she’d disclosed? That awful moth swerving overhead, pulling her under its trembling shadows….
“Maybe you should tell the G-men what really happened. To clear Kenny’s name.”
He wanted her to say … what? That a guard had attacked her? But would anyone believe her? And then they’d all be implicated in the scandal. “How would I explain that I sneaked out that night? And how … how would we account for that guard being beaten within an inch of his life?”
“Well. I don’t know.”
“Oh, I have an idea.” She propped herself up. “I’ll tell them that you beat the guy up. That’s what happened, right, Kaz?”
“Well. Me and Kenny together.”
The two of them together. He sounded so certain.
“So you and Kenny’ll share the blame then?”
“I don’t know, Lily.” Anguish sharpened all his features.
The third time Kaz came to see her, something else was on his mind.
“Listen, Lily, I have to ask you for a favour. Things have gotten bad around here. There’s been a crackdown. My photographs have been seized. Everything the police could get their hands on.”
“What? Why now?”
“Remember those WRA photographers?”
She shook her head.
“Sure you do. Emily Archer?”
The woman with the deep, woolly laughter and sure-footed stride. That was how people walked when they were used to being listened to. She’d gotten her hooks into Kaz, poisoned his mind with dangerous thoughts.
“On Em’s last visit, I showed her some recent photos. Not just sunsets and pretty girls.” His eyes narrowed, like he was trying to peer through the slit of a keyhole. “Real pictures. Of the stuff really going on here. Em was fascinated by what she saw. All the violence and fear she hasn’t been allowed access to.”
“So?” After all she’d been through, Kaz wanted to talk about this other woman?
“Em thought my pictures ought to be seen, so people’ll know what’s actually going on. So I let her circulate some of my photos — keeping my identity secret, of course.”
“You didn’t, Kaz!”
“One of my pictures ended up on the cover of a magazine. A small, arty magazine, the kind no one cares about usually. But these days, the government does care. The image got traced back to me. Last night, the FBI found out where I’ve got my darkroom and confiscated everything. My camera, all my equipment.”
“Oh my God.”
A vein on his forehead was pulsing. As she watched it throb, like a river about to overflow, her own blood pounded. If it weren’t for his father’s position, he wouldn’t still be here. Not by a long shot. Surely he realized how close he was to being hauled away to the real prison camp or worse.
His fear only seemed to embolden him though, an intoxicant to his nerves. His hands made a rattling noise and extended a small tin box. He looked at her hopefully, sheepishly. “This contains all the photos the G-men didn’t get their hands on. The floorboards are loose under your bed. It’s the perfect hiding spot. Give me the other pictures I’ve given you. We’ll put them all together in this box and hide them. You’ve got to protect them for me.”
Scraps of sunlight were playing on the far wall, dancing on the periphery of her vision. She thought of that picture of her strolling across the desert under the sun’s caress. The very image Kaz had used to seduce her. Perhaps it was for the best it was going to be buried.
A spell of dizziness, as she stood up and let him push the bed aside. She found her little pouch of pictures. Without looking at any of them, she thrust the pile at Kaz.
Two floorboards popped up, revealing a small, dark cavern.
A vault. A coffin.
After her mother had left them, whenever Lily used to feel sad as a child, one thing could lift her spirits. That blinding light. She first saw it one night after her father had gone out. Lily had been unable to sleep in the muggy weather, so she’d slipped out her bedroom window to the front lawn. A blazing white light was coming down the street, filling the sky with a bright aura, too painful to look at directly, but she didn’t want to shield her eyes.
Her mother was coming home — she was sure of it. The light drew closer. Even after she’d returned to bed, she knew it was still out there, hovering and protecting her.
As time went by and it became clear her mother wasn’t coming back, Lily found herself thinking back to that mysterious asteroid and the glow it had ignited inside her. For some reason, she remained convinced it had been her mother: the last hot surge of their connection. The light had stayed in her head all these years, flickering, gathering force whenever she felt sad and depleted, giving her the strength to carry on.
A dab of cream. Shock of wetness, followed by mild stinging. Aunt Haruko’s knobby fingers were massaging in the lotion. If this was how a ghost’s fingertips felt, Lily didn’t mind at all. She might have become a little girl again. POND’S, read the label. She imagined herself slipping into a pond: the cool water rippling up over her skin, washing her hair, healing everything.
The old woman gave a solemn nod. “Genki?”
“Genki.” Maybe just saying she felt better would make it true. “Have you seen Kaz?”
“I told you, Lily-san. He hasn’t come today.”
Despite everything, the afterburn of hope still lingered, softening his betrayal. That monstrous, beautiful face hovering above her, features occluded by shadows. Maybe it had been Kaz. Not Kenny, but Kaz. Or both of them. The mantra caught hold in her heart.
Later that night as she lay in bed, shouting filled the house. She finally got up. Peeking down the staircase into the shadows, she couldn’t see much of anything, yet Kaz’s voice was unmistakable.
“This is outrageous — what did Kenny do? They don’t have any proof. There’s been no investigation. They just went ahead and arrested him!”
“It doesn’t matter,” the doctor said. “He’s a troublemaker, one way or another.”
“You really don’t care? None of this strikes you as the least bit unjust?”
Lily ventured down. “What’s happened to Kenny?”
“The police have arrested him, dragged him off to prison! They’re saying he’s the madman responsible for both attacks. What did you tell them?”
“Nothing.” The word sliced through the air.
“See? All the police have to go on is what Frank Isaka told them. He has no problem pointing fingers. And the police just take his word!”
“Let them run their investigation and you stay out of it,” the doctor said. “The less you have to do with Kenny Honda, the better.”
“Oh, no.” Kaz backed away.
She searched for some hint of tenderness, submerged affection. All she saw was cold disdain. Kaz wanted her to do what? Come forward? But the moment for that had long passed, and would the FBI believe anything she had to say, anyway?
Guilt stretched across her chest, an image of Kenny’s irreverent grin lighting up the far reaches of her conscience. If it hadn’t been for that second set of feet pounding toward her, that guard would have had a lot of fun. No doubt, she was indebted to someone. But whose feet had they been? As she reached back through the tunnels of her memory, it was Kaz’s face she now saw looming above her — fierce as a warrior, backlit by moonlight, his eyes incandescent. It had been him, hadn’t it? Kenny had been there doing his part, but so had Kaz. That horrible moaning from the lumpish body on the ground as though the earth itself were trying to offer up some doleful apology. If Kenny was destined to take the fall for both of them, why shouldn’t he? Why should they both go down? Was it so wrong of her to be thinking this way? She had to protect Kaz from himself, from his own excessive loyalty. It was what the doctor expected of her. After all the doctor had done for her, she owed him that much, didn’t she?
The door slammed with a crack, like a gunshot. She felt herself flinch, stiffen. Kaz hadn’t even bothered to look at her on his way out.
Ten
How strange that Chinese people all lived together in Chinatown, Rita used to think. Walking along Elizabeth Street, her hand clasped in Grandpa’s, a hush came over her: red lanterns glowed in restaurant windows, dragon-head kites flew in doorways, and the air was rich with fragrant, meaty odours pouring out of Sai Woo and Kwong Chow. None of the kids stared at her or made faces; they just assumed she was one of them.
But Japanese people didn’t have their own neighbourhood; they hadn’t since the war, according to Grandpa. A long time ago, he’d had his own medical practice in Little Tokyo, but that had been on the other side of the world in some big American city. Now it was all just a bunch of rat-infested warehouses.
This had been a problem when it came time for him to set up his new practice. A Japanese doctor needed Japanese patients. For the longest time he’d worked as Dr. Chong’s assistant while studying to take the medical exam that would allow him to practise in Ontario. He wasn’t as sharp as he’d once been, Rita suspected. The new procedures and regulations seemed to baffle him as he sat at the dining-room table, night after night, barricaded by textbooks under the watery green glow of the banker’s lamp that Lily had salvaged from a church sale.
The prospect of Grandpa becoming a real doctor again was balm to her senses. She loved talking about how he was a great man, a real pioneer, one of the first Japanese doctors in North America. He’d left Japan when he was only fourteen and had five yen in his pocket. God didn’t make men like him anymore, Lily would say, by which she meant that Kaz had been a sorry-ass failure.
When Grandpa finally passed the exam, she was ecstatic. At last they could set up his office on the first floor. “A real doctor’s office,” she kept saying. Lily got all dressed up and they took the streetcar to a used furniture store, where they chose some upholstered chairs and a heavy metal desk. The next day when the furniture arrived, a manic energy came over her and she dragged everything around, trying out different configurations for the waiting room. Finally satisfied, she sat down and crossed her arms with a small, whimsical smile.
After the Bloom Page 12