The Wild Impossibility

by Ossola, Cheryl A. ;

  No more than a quarter mile ahead, the guard towers poked their ugly heads into the sky. Maddalena’s skin prickled. At night the searchlights shot through the darkness, zigzagging around the camp, visible for miles around. At first Maddalena had watched them from the living room windows, fascinated by the patterns they made, afraid of what they watched over. Dangerous people, her mother said. Everyone said it. Within two months, Maddalena had hardly noticed the searchlights, but now, because of the boy, they seemed brighter and threatening again. And the camp seemed uglier, a scar on the valley made more horrible by the beauty of the mountains. At least the mountains gave the people at Manzanar something pretty to look at. Maybe the boy could see them from his room, like she could from hers, and for three years they’d been looking at the same view without knowing one another existed.

  Maddalena kept Scout at a moderate pace, noting the markers along her path to the camp. There—the stink of animals, riding the breeze from the chicken and hog farms. There—the southernmost pass of fence and Bairs Creek, running from the Sierra right through the camp. There—the rock garden, so peaceful and pretty with flowering shrubs tucked among rusted boulders.

  Some teenage girls sat in the garden, talking and laughing, and Maddalena wondered if they talked about the same things she and Regina did—boys and clothes and hairstyles, the war, the heat. The girls wore neat blouses and pleated skirts with white bobby socks, their hair styled in bobs and waves. They seemed like anyone else in Owens Valley. If they were like anyone else, they must play and study and work, argue and cry and complain. And fall in love. The thought made Maddalena’s face flush.

  

  Akira pushed a linen cart down the hall to the Emergency Room, his head foggy with lack of sleep. This time it wasn’t the old couple who shared their room, snoring on the other side of a blanket wall, that had kept him awake—it was the white girl, and Paul, who had a lousy track record when it came to keeping secrets. Gossip was a favorite pastime at Manzanar, and if Annabelle got wind of the girl she’d be jealous as all get out. And she’d be right to be jealous. Even though he’d talked to the white girl for all of a minute, and seen her only from a distance since then, she was all he thought about these days.

  Of course, his parents would never approve of him seeing a girl like that, and in the old days their disapproval would have bothered him. Now, though he didn’t want to hurt them, he didn’t give a damn about their approval. Everything was different here, the traditions almost forgotten. With people agreeing to relocate out east in order to leave Manzanar, others taking temporary leave from the camp by cutting beets and thinning lettuces in Montana or Idaho, guys shipping out overseas, and kids running in packs, families fell apart. Akira rarely ate with his parents anymore, spent evenings playing poker or flirting, doing whatever helped him fight the boredom or stoked his sense of outrage. To hell with respect for authority, with being calm and polite when you felt gutted. Every day in this prison siphoned off a little more of who he’d been brought up to be.

  Akira stacked blankets on the linen cart, thin from overwashing, coarse from bleach. He thought about the white girl’s skin, her hair, what they would feel like. What she would smell like. The taste of her mouth.

  

  Maddalena tightened her grip on the reins, as if she might float up into the air and never return to earth. Maybe that was what love felt like. She’d had crushes before, but it would be perfectly fine if she never saw any of those boys again. This was different. Love or not love, it was something new. She woke up every morning feeling like the day ahead would bring something unimaginable and wonderful, something no boy in Owens Valley could promise her. She felt brighter and stronger than she used to be, as if she’d been reinvented. As if she might have a life that wasn’t like her mother’s.

  Past another guard tower, four more rows of barracks, an apartment where a flowered curtain moved as if someone were spying on her. Then two small boys playing with sticks and marbles abandoned their game and ran parallel to the fence, keeping pace with her and yelling, “Hey, what’s your horse’s name?” and “Give me a ride!” Suddenly Maddalena felt as if all of Manzanar was watching her.

  There—the hospital, as drab and depressing as every other building in Manzanar, made beautiful when the boy stood outside it. There—the plain metal handrail that edged the concrete steps. But no boy, cigarette in hand. No boy to make her throat tighten. Disappointment descended like a darkening sky. Then a keyhole of light—he might still come; the door could open at any moment. She’d count to one hundred before giving up.

  Maddalena let Scout graze near Manzanar’s cemetery. A small rectangle with barely noticeable graves, it was creepier than most cemeteries. It had taken her a while to figure out why, but then she decided it was because the camp was meant to be temporary. People weren’t supposed to die there.

  When she got to eighty-five, she heard voices. Three girls with white lab coats over their skirts and two boys wearing khakis and green surgical smocks came out the side door of the hospital. One of them was the boy. Her boy. He saw her and hung back.

  “C’mon, Akira,” the other boy said.

  “Be right there,” Akira replied. “Gonna have a quick smoke.”

  “Sure you are,” one of the girls said.

  “Good thing you’re not allergic to horses,” the other boy said.

  “Very funny, Paul.”

  Maddalena waited, lightheaded, bloodless, airborne. Akira! His name was Akira! His friends walked toward the street, Paul turning to flash a thumbs-up. She flushed, wondering what they would say about her.

  “Hello,” Akira said softly, pocketing his cigarettes. Even from a distance he could feel her. He walked toward the barbed wire, stopped a few feet away. She was beautiful, like a princess on that horse, the sun coppering her hair.

  His voice was low, so quiet Maddalena might have imagined it. Blood was pounding in her ears and something was winging through the air from him to her, as if the fence between them didn’t exist, as if Akira could reach out and touch her. She started to reply and he put a finger to his lips, angling his head toward a nearby guard tower. Then he smiled, his face bright and sweet like a little kid’s. But the way he stood, tall and straight, he looked like a man, not like the boys at school, all slouched and loosey-goosey. There it was again, that warm, watery feeling under her skin. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move for the longest time. Then she slid off Scout and rushed toward the fence.

  The sharp voice of a tower guard sliced the air. “Halt! Move away from the fence!”

  Maddalena froze, the barbed wire an arm’s reach away.

  “Step away from the fence,” the voice repeated.

  Akira’s voice: “Go!”

  Her feet had grown roots. A feeling like falling off a cliff, then the crack of a shot.

  Maddalena fell to her knees.

  Eight

  March 6, 2011

  Dinner at the Kanekos’ house had been an every-other-Sunday tradition for fifteen years, non-negotiable as far as Dan’s mother, Mariko, was concerned. After Aimi died, Mariko made it her mission to ensure that Kira would be there. The day before each dinner Kira’s phone would ring, always late in the morning, and Mariko would say how much everyone was looking forward to seeing her, no need to bring anything. She seemed to think her daughter-in-law would drift away on an ocean of sadness without family to anchor her. She was probably right.

  Mariko’s vigilance meant staying home on this particular Sunday wasn’t an option, no matter how unsociable Kira felt. That morning Dan had gone for a run and she’d stayed in bed, fighting a drilling headache and trying to convince herself she could get through the day. She felt like an ingrate. Mariko, who’d always been a sweet, constant presence, had become extra vigilant, leaving Kira messages when she ignored her ringing phone and stopping by with food she said was more than she and her husband, Kenji, co
uld eat but that Kira knew she’d cooked for her and Dan. She told herself that spending time with Dan’s family would be good for her, a distraction, but all she could think about was the daytime dream and whether she’d have another one. A week had crept by, a week of jumpiness alternating with panic, of waking each morning with her jaw clenched, knees drawn to her chest, assessing the temperature of her hands, terrified to open her eyes to what might be a monochrome world. It hadn’t happened. No odd color shift, no shadowy murder scene or anything like it, no screaming girl. Whatever it was, it hadn’t happened again, and though that was a good sign, it wasn’t exactly conclusive.

  The headache spidered up the back of her head, aiming for the sensitive spot behind her eyes. The girl in that dream—if it was a dream—was the same one with the baby in the nighttime dreams, only this time there was no baby. Then the thought Kira couldn’t vanquish pounded in sync with her headache, insistent as a mantra: if this daytime-dream-weirdness happened once, it could happen again. She thought she might throw up.

  Fifteen minutes later Dan came home, and Kira shot into the bathroom. She sat on the toilet, sweating and shivering, wishing she could stay home and google “hallucinations” obsessively, trying to find something that didn’t mention schizophrenia.

  “Can I get in the shower?” Dan said.

  “In a minute.” She ran the water steam-room hot and let it pummel her head, trying to remember wanting Dan to shower with her. Waterfall sex, they called it. Another pleasure that had become a distant memory, like dinner at the Kanekos’. Kira used to love going, loved being part of the big family she’d wished for as a child. The dinners started at three and went on for hours. Arguments might flare or simmer, jokes might trample on someone’s feelings, but whatever happened, it was family time and Kira had treasured it. Now it was a ritual to endure.

  She’d gone to her first Kaneko dinner a few weeks after meeting Dan. When he invited her, they’d been at her place in south Berkeley, a studio cottage planted among apple and plum trees behind an aging Victorian. Halfway through dinner Dan chugged half a glass of wine and said, “Okay, I’ve mustered my courage.”

  Kira looked up, alarmed.

  “So, we have dinner at my folks’ twice a month, my sisters and me. And Jennifer’s husband, and sometimes…well, what I mean is, would you go with me? Next Sunday?”

  “You want me to meet your parents? Wow, I guess that means we’re going steady.” Kira laughed. If any other man had suggested she meet his parents so soon, she would have made an excuse not to go and then ended the relationship.

  “I was thinking of inviting you to the prom,” Dan said. “Seriously, Sunday dinner is kind of a big deal for my parents. And I want them to meet you.”

  “Do you think your mom will like me?”

  “Yes.”

  “How will I know?”

  “Leftovers. Especially spam rolls. You’ll know you’re in if she gives you those.”

  “Fine, I’ll go,” Kira said. “I mean, spam rolls—who could resist? But you’ll need to brief me. I’m not going without the full low-down on your family.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You’re not? Okay, here goes.”

  His parents were born in the Bay Area, to Japanese parents, he said; he and his two younger sisters, Emma and Jennifer, had grown up in the house his parents still lived in, in the Elmwood neighborhood of Berkeley. His mom used to make chocolate chip pancakes on weekends, and she spent years of her life cheering her children on at Little League games and lessons—piano and gymnastics for him, violin and ballet for his sisters.

  “My mom’s quiet, but it’s because she’s shy,” Dan said, pouring more wine. “She loves animals. She volunteers at animal shelters, and she’s always loved the rejects—senior citizens, three-legged dogs, one-eyed black cats. If Emma weren’t allergic, we’d have had a houseful of cats, probably all diabetic or dying of cancer.”

  His dad, Kenji, used to take him fishing in the Sierra foothills and hiking along the coast. Some of Dan’s earliest memories were of spending entire days at the de Young or the Museum of Modern Art. “I learned to love line and form because of my dad,” he said. “He never lectured or anything, but he couldn’t help talking about how things were put together, the brilliance of it. He taught me that things are more interesting when you look at all their parts, at how the minutiae make up the whole. I remember him pointing out the structure of an oak leaf and then comparing it to another kind of leaf. The day I caught my first fish, he was more excited about showing me the pattern of the scales than he was that I’d actually caught something. Anyway, that’s why I ended up going into architecture.”

  Dan had joined his father’s firm the day after he graduated from Cal. For him and Kenji, design was an exercise in finding balance, experimenting with ways to make each architectural aspect the ideal blend of purpose and beauty.

  “What kind of things did your dad design when you were a kid?”

  “Mostly residential. Now we do some commercial stuff, but we’d both rather design houses. He did a Buddhist temple when I was a kid, but he didn’t like it.”

  “Why not?”

  “He thought it was too austere. That’s probably why we weren’t raised Buddhist.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Are you always this gullible?”

  “Yes. You don’t know that by now?”

  Instead of answering, he slow-danced her to the bedroom.

  Kira had spent the next week fighting the urge to back out of the invitation, but disappointing Dan seemed cruel and besides, she was curious. When the day arrived, she emptied her closet trying to figure out what to wear, finally choosing a vintage cashmere cardigan in ’50s pink worn over a white camisole and dark jeans. The shoes were easy—ballet flats, because no mother liked seeing her son’s girlfriend tower over him. Barefoot, Kira and Dan stood eye to eye.

  On the way to the house she said, “I’m terrified. What if I gag on a spam roll?”

  “No spam rolls tonight,” Dan said. “Dad’s grilling. You’ll be fine.”

  Ten minutes later they pulled in front of a brown-shingled bungalow with leaded glass windows. A live oak sentried the yard and dogwoods hovered over the stairs to the front porch. Along the stepping-stone walkway, pink hydrangeas alternated with chubby clumps of Spanish lavender, and milky hollyhocks swayed near one corner of the house. A storybook home, the kind that always came with a mother and father and sisters and brothers. Transfixed, Kira blinked back tears.

  “Are you ready to roll?”

  “I guess so,” Kira said. “Wait a minute—how many women have you brought to these dinners?”

  “Can’t remember. Forty, sixty? Could be closer to a hundred.”

  “You’ll pay for that later.”

  As they started up the steps, the front door swung open and a small woman came onto the porch, elegant in lilac silk and black linen, a chin-length bob. Dan took the steps two at a time and grabbed her, swinging her onto her toes. She laughed and kissed him, and when he let her go she turned to Kira, smoothing her silvered hair.

  “Kira, welcome, we’re so glad you could come. I’m Mariko. Please come in. Everyone is on the back deck.”

  Two hours later, after feasting on grilled salmon and vegetables and too much sake, Kira had answered innumerable questions about where she grew up, her family, and her work at the hospital. She felt completely at home, though she supposed the sake had something to do with that. It was a premium kind, Kenji said as he filled her glass. “For special occasions,” he added, which made her blush. A sweet man, intelligent and pensive, whose controlled exterior seemed to simmer with subdued energy—a mischievous streak, Kira thought, or simply a love of life. She imagined having a father like him, the long conversations they’d have, the walks they’d take, the things he’d teach her.

  Mellowed by the alcohol, she watched and li
stened, enjoying the rush of family, the chatter and laughter, the resurfacing of decades-old arguments. As a child she’d dreamed of sharing secrets, trading clothes and toys with a sister or walking home from school with an older brother. She’d imagined relatives who’d bring food and presents on holidays and birthdays, cousins she’d hide from in the garden, a favorite aunt who’d take her shopping for clothes, a grandfather who’d ride the Tilden Park carousel with her and buy her an ice cream. Instead, she had quiet and loneliness, a mother she couldn’t predict.

  That night at the Kanekos’ she could have sat there forever, already feeling at home. But that was five years ago, and everything was different now. Kira got out of the shower and swiped fog off the mirror. At least she looked normal.

  Three hours later she’d made it through dinner. When Kira mentioned her relentless headache, Mariko insisted she stay put while the others cleared dishes, set out dessert plates, poured more wine. While everyone else debated the merits of meditation, exercise, or acupuncture for headache relief, Emma brought a cake from the kitchen.

  “My famous carrot cake,” she announced, setting it on the table. From Kira’s vantage point, curled in an armchair, candlelight danced behind the cake. Like a birthday cake, she thought, and instantly heat flared in her hands. Then the sudden shroud of salmon-pink shadows, the shift from yellow to nerve-jangling green.