by John Okada
“I’m sorry to keep you standing like this. Do come in, please.” Grasping her elbow firmly, he led her to the kitchen.
Emi sat down without removing her coat and watched as Ichiro glumly resumed his game of solitaire.
“I’m getting a divorce from Ralph,” she said.
“Does he know?”
“He asked me to get one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Seems a shame, that’s all. I guess Ken never got around to finishing that letter.”
“I hardly think it would have done any good,” she said.
“Don’t love him any more?”
She uncrumpled a ball of Kleenex and dabbed at her nose. “It’s been too many years to talk about love.”
“Son of a bitch.” That wasn’t what he was feeling, but only what he thought. Yet, how was he to say to her that a girl like her deserved a better deal than the rotten one that she had gotten, that a lot of guys including himself would give a right arm for a woman like her? He said again, mostly in despair: “No-good son of a bitch.”
“Please,” she said and she was close to tears.
“Sorry,” he said hastily. Then he added: “This is sure the time for being sorry. Sorry this, sorry that. Why’d you come?”
“I heard about your mother. I wanted to see you.”
“I’m glad you came. I hadn’t expected to see you again and, really, it’s very funny because there’s no one else I can talk to.”
“Mr. Maeno asked about you. He’s still looking for someone to work for him.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve got a pretty good line on a job. I’m seeing about it tomorrow.” He raked up the cards when the game wouldn’t come out, shuffled, and started to lay out a new game.
“Stop, please.” She put a hand over his.
“Sorry.” He grinned at the word, then used his free hand to enfold hers. “It’ll be nice for the fellows to have you back in circulation.”
“Really?” She didn’t sound pleased at all.
“Sure. You’re still young, pretty—no, you’re more beautiful than pretty. You’ve got a lot to offer any man. Ralph’s a damn fool besides being a son of a bitch.”
“Don’t.”
“Okay, but he is.”
Talking, she slipped her hand unobtrusively from between his and back onto her lap. “I’ve been lonely a long time, Ichiro. I didn’t realize how much until that night you stopped in and gave me word about Ken and then hinted you might not be seeing me any more. Then when Ralph’s letter came, I really began to suffer from it. I’ve got to do something or go crazy.”
“It takes time,” he said, knowing that it meant nothing.
“Come and see me,” she pleaded.
“I’m no good for you. No good for anybody.”
“Why? Why do you say that?”
“True, that’s why.”
“It isn’t, it isn’t, it isn’t!” And now she was sobbing quietly.
He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and put it in her hand. Emi sniffled into it and wiped her eyes, trying hard to compose herself.
“I’ll be going,” she said.
Without looking at her, he started to lay out a new game.
“It was after Ken was dead and Ralph’s letter had come and I was feeling so lonely,” said Emi. “I was thinking then how nice it would be to go dancing like a long time ago. I was hoping you would come and take me out. You see how it is? Thoughts of a little girl.”
“Let’s go,” he said suddenly.
“Where?”
“Dancing.”
“But, your mother.”
“She’s nothing. I ran out on the funeral. That’s how it is.”
“No,” she said stubbornly, “not tonight. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Nonsense. What’s more right than two young people going dancing because they feel like it?”
He straightened his tie and hustled into his overcoat.
She seemed to want to protest further but said no more.
“Come on.” Taking her arm in his, they walked together out of the store and to her Ford, parked at the curb. Once in the car and on their way, they felt relaxed and free and happy.
“Where to?” he said gaily.
“Wherever you wish,” she replied.
The only place he could think of was the Trianon in mid-town and it disturbed him because it was likely that he might run into some people there that might know him. He drove slowly, trying to think of some other places. Then it occurred to him that he couldn’t help finding some place by driving along one of the busier highways going out of the city. He headed south, feeling the snug warmth of Emi close to him and immensely grateful that she had come to offer her condolences.
They didn’t say much either in the car or after they found a sizable roadhouse and started dancing to a smooth six-piece orchestra. He was enjoying it and he felt that Emi was too. This is the way it ought to be, he thought to himself, to be able to dance with a girl you like and really get a kick out of it because everything is on an even keel and one’s worries are only the usual ones of unpaid bills and sickness in the family and being late to work too often. Why can’t it be that way for me? Nobody’s looking twice at us. Nobody’s asking me where I was during the war or what the hell I am doing back on the Coast. There’s no trouble to be had without looking for it. Everything’s the same, just as it used to be. No bad feelings except for those that have always existed and probably always will. It’s a matter of attitude. Mine needs changing. I’ve got to love the world the way I used to. I’ve got to love it and the people so I’ll feel good, and feeling good will make life worth while. There’s no point in crying about what’s done. There’s a place for me and Emi and Freddie here on the dance floor and out there in the hustle of things if we’ll let it be that way. I’ve been fighting it and hating it and letting my bitterness against myself and Ma and Pa and even Taro throw the whole universe out of perspective. I want only to go on living and be happy. I’ve only to let myself do so.
Hanging close to each other until the last note was gone, they slowly returned to the table to sit out the next or until they should again feel like dancing. They smiled at each other, for there really was nothing to be said. Ichiro saw a man coming toward them as he lit his cigarette.
He was not a young man and was slightly drunk. A few tables away he bumped into a chair and had to apologize, but he didn’t take his eyes from Ichiro and Emi and he kept on coming.
“Pardon my intrusion,” he said, smiling affably.
“Yes?” The skepticism was heavy on Ichiro’s face. He felt the heat rising within him as he tried to adjust himself to what he felt was coming.
“I saw you and want to buy you both a drink.”
“There’s no need, really,” said Emi pleasantly.
“There is,” he said, his voice rising suddenly, “because I want to. Is that a good enough reason, or isn’t it?”
“Sure it is.” Ichiro relaxed. The man was obviously all right.
“Fine. No, don’t ask me to sit down. All I want to do is buy you a drink. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Pleased, the man went back to his own companions and, a while later, the waiter came to take the order for the drinks. They sipped them, eyeing each other quizzically and looking once or twice at the table of the man, who, as far as they knew, didn’t look at them the rest of the time they stayed.
“What do you think?” asked Emi.
Ichiro rubbed his finger over a wet spot on the table. “I think the man had a lot of Japanese friends once. Maybe he was a produce buyer or something and he misses the ones who didn’t come back.”
“That’s no good,” she said.
“I think,�
�� he started again, “he had a son in that outfit that got surrounded up in the mountains by the Germans and was finally liberated by the Japanese boys.”
Emi smiled. “No good.”
“I think he’s a Japanese who’s lucky enough not to look Japanese and feels sorry everytime he sees a Jap that looks like one.”
“That’s even worse.”
He took the butt of his cigarette and knocked off the glowing end into the ash tray. “I want to think,” he said soberly, “that he saw a young couple and liked their looks and felt he wanted to buy them a drink and did.”
“You keep on thinking that. That’s how it was.”
They rose, embraced, and moved out onto the dance floor.
“He probably had his eye on you,” he said.
“Sure,” she said, “other women they look at and undress. Me, they undress and put in bed. It’s something about me.”
“Keep talking,” he said, feeling immensely full and wanting that moment to last a lifetime.
* * *
—
He didn’t get home until three o’clock, but the kitchen light was on. The old man, quite sober, was busily tying up several large packages.
“Japan?”
“Ya, Ichiro. I send tomorrow.”
He hung up his coat and sat and watched. “I felt sick. I just couldn’t stay for the rest of the funeral, Pa.”
“That is all right. Mama understands.” He worked the heavy twine carefully around a brown package and motioned with his chin for Ichiro to lend a finger.
“You’ll be lonesome Pa, huh?”
“Not so much. Mama was not well. It is better this way.” He pulled vigorously at the knot, almost catching Ichiro’s finger.
“You plan to keep the store?”
“Ya, it is just right for me. Maybe I fix up a little bit. Paint the shelves, a better cash register, maybe I think I buy a nice, white showcase for the lunch meat and eggs and things.”
“That’ll cost money.”
“Ya, but I have. Mama was saving for Japan. She went for nothing. After a while, I go for nothing too.” Sweating a bit from the effort of tying the packages, he wiped his brow with a clean handkerchief and sat down to pen the addresses. He seemed uncommonly contented for a man who had just lost his wife. He was still wearing the new blue suit as if he couldn’t take the time to remove it before starting to work on the packages.
Ichiro watched his father, detecting an insuppressible air of enthusiasm and bubbling glee as he scratched in the names and addresses in both English and Japanese in several places on each package. There were four in all. The packages were the symbol of his freedom in a way. He no longer had just to think about sending them. It was his will to send them and nothing was any longer to prevent his so doing. He had no visions about Japan or about a victory that had never existed. While he might have been a weakling in the shadow of his wife, he was a reasonable man. He knew how things were and he was elated to be able finally to exercise his reasonable ways. Above all, he was a man of natural feelings and that, he felt, had always been the trouble with his wife. She tried to live her life and theirs according to manufactured feelings. It was not to be so.
“Do you ever think about life?” he asked his son suddenly.
“What?”
“Ya, that was too sudden,” he said smiling. “I meant only to say that one must live in the real world. One must live naturally, not so? It is not always a happy life but, sad or happy, it can be a good life. It is like the seasons. It cannot always be fall. I like the fall.”
“Sure, Pa. That makes sense.”
The old man piled the packages neatly on the table and admired them. “You take time, Ichiro. There is no hurry. I do not understand everything that is troubling you. I know—I feel only that it is very big. You give it time. It will work out. After a while, maybe, you go to work or go to school if you wish. It can be done. You have a bed. There is always plenty to eat. I give you money to spend. Take time, ya?”
“Sure, Pa. I’m not worried.”
“So? Good.” And his lips trembled a little and Ichiro felt that it was because the old man was finally doing and saying what he should have long ago and knew that it was too late.
“I’m seeing about a job tomorrow,” he said, heading for the bathroom.
“Ya, that is good. That is good.” Sitting there contemplatively, he started to work the tie loose from his neck.
10
It was the sort of morning that non-Seattleites are always ascribing to Seattle—wet without being really wet and the whole city enveloped in a kind of dull, grayish, thin fog. The rain was there, a finely speckled spray which one felt against the skin of one’s face and which clung to water-resistant garments like dew on a leaf. The temperature was around forty and the clammy chill of the air seeped through the outercoats and past the undergarments and sucked the warmth from the very skin.
Emerging from the stifling heat of the bus, Ichiro shivered and walked briskly down the hill toward the lake. Through the mid-morning haze, he saw the great length of yellow-painted fence proclaiming in red letters as tall as a man that everything beyond—the disreputable, patched-up, painted shacks and buildings, the huge pile of scrap, the freshly scrubbed trucks, the sad men and women—were of that charitable community known as the Christian Rehabilitation Center.
At the gate he inquired of a burly fellow sitting in a tiny guardhouse the way to the offices. The man pointed in the general direction of a cluster of garage-like, wooden structures. Ichiro stood there, showing by his expression that the directions weren’t at all sufficient. The man pulled his arm out of the rain and sat down so that all Ichiro could see was the top of his head.
Walking close to the side of the roadway so as to benefit from the protection of the eaves, he ambled in the direction pointed out to him. There were stalls along both sides where the rejected items from a thousand attics and basements had been sorted out in a semblance of order and put out for the inspection of the bargain-hunting public. The junk was piled on tables, crammed into bins, hung from walls and ceilings, and pushed out into the drizzling rain. There were attendants to be seen, mean-looking men and women whose sole object seemed to be that of seeking out precious, overlooked cracks and corners into which more junk could be squeezed. They were like the junk, patched and refinished but with the wasted best years irrevocably buried. Neither they nor the antiquated, scarred, and barely salvaged items that they pushed about would ever see good days again.
Past the stalls was an expanse of open ground on which the junk was in the form and shape of yellowed iceboxes and ancient washing machines and huge stacks of iron beds and odds and ends of clumsy, rusted machinery and tangled heaps of pipes and one dilapidated two-and-a-half-ton army truck minus tires and wheels and a fender and the motor.
An old man in a long, black raincoat sat on the truck bed with legs dangling over the end. Beside him was a small pile of tools and he sat smoking his pipe as if he were out soaking up a bit of sunshine. His eyes, almost obliterated by bushy eyebrows and deep wrinkles, followed Ichiro’s progress patiently.
“What’ll you have?” he shouted.
“Nothing, pop.”
“Got some fine refrigerators dirt cheap. I know. I fix ’em.”
“I’m not buying today.”
“How ’bout a washing machine. Got one in yesterday that’s a honey.” Picking up a screwdriver, he pointed behind him.
“How much?”
“I thought you weren’t buyin’.”
“I’m not.”
“Why you askin’?”
“For the hell of it.”
“You’re cute,” replied the old man, his whole face wrinkling further into a big smile. “Don’t happen to have a drink on you, have you?”
Not bothering to answer, Ichiro continued along his way. He had no
w reached the buildings which from the gate had looked like garages and was surprised to see that they were workshops. Through the windows, he saw men fixing and painting furniture, repairing tricycles and wagons, upholstering sofas, sorting rags and baling them into enormous, rectangular bundles, and groups of women sewing and cutting and patching and cleaning clothing and curtains and rugs and bedding. They all looked warm and comfortable and satisfied.
There was a sign on the end of one of the buildings saying “Administrative Offices” with a red hand pointing over to his right. He took the corner and was mildly astonished at the sight of a new one-story brick building with plenty of glass and surrounded by a border of young bushes. Pausing at the door, he fought the urge to turn back and forget about the job. He brushed his shoes across the large rubber mat and saw that the woman behind the desk in the lobby was smiling at him. He took his time, walking in slow, deliberate steps and concentrating on the smile so as not to get nervous. By the time he was close enough to speak to her, he was quite fascinated by the smile, which had remained precisely the same all the while he had been watching it.
“Yes, young man?” She spoke quickly, almost sharply.
It was then that he saw that her eyes were not smiling and that the smile on her mouth was caused by a scar on one side of her face that tugged at the corner of her mouth so that she had not really been smiling at all.
“I came about a job,” he said.
She pushed one of a half-dozen buttons on a brown, plastic box and lifted the phone to her ear. Waiting no more than a few seconds, she spoke: “Are you available for an interview, Mr. Morrison?”
A pause, then: “A young man. Japanese, I think.”
“Down the hall to your left,” she said, pointing with one hand and replacing the phone with the other. “Mr. Morrison will see you.”
“Thanks.” He walked down the hall, passing several unmarked doors. Confused, he halted and looked back at the woman. She was looking straight ahead and he couldn’t see the smile because it was on the other side of her face.