Home Front Lines

by Brenda Sparks Prescott

  Captain B. lit his own cigarette and folded an arm across his stomach. His other arm hinged up and down as he smoked. “Now my men tell me they’ve detected a small vessel somewhere out there.” He pointed his cigarette straight out at the spot where the ghostly light had blinked minutes before. “Perhaps the boat your husband found out about was a decoy. What do you think, Lola?”

  It was. Of course it was a decoy. We had everything planned. I felt José stiffen at the veiled accusation and sound of my nickname. He dared not say anything, though.

  “Maybe it’s one of the ghost ships lost during a hurricane,” I said.

  “I see.” Captain B. dropped his left hand onto my leg and brushed down the salt-stiffened cloth. His fingers encountered a small clump of seaweed. They paused before picking it off. I couldn’t tell how much my husband could see, but surely he sensed an exchange taking place. “In that case, I must tell our boats not to bother giving chase. We have much work to do and shouldn’t waste energy chasing phantoms.”

  Captain B. swung his feet to the inland side of the wall and stood next to José. I looked back, and although my eyes were accustomed to the dark, I couldn’t read the look that passed between the two men. Without a word, Captain B. went to his car and leaned in. I turned back to face the sea. I could hear the captain’s low voice speaking in short bursts. Not just the children, but the whole trip to find Tomás hung on this part of the operation running smoothly. Would the captain keep his side of the bargain? How could I know?

  He straightened and said, “Comrade Santos, you’ve done good work tonight, but your car shouldn’t be seen out here after curfew. My fellow officers may not be as understanding as I.”

  “Of course.” José saluted the captain and crossed the lot to stand beside our Chevy. “Come, Dolores.”

  I scanned the haze again for signs of life. Later, perhaps, when the danger seeped out of our daily lives, we could dream together of a safe return of our children. “You go ahead.” I twisted to look at my soldier but couldn’t make out his face in the gloom. “I’ll get a ride from him.” My husband jerked his head once but then stood motionless, silent.

  “Yes, you go ahead,” the captain commanded from the far side of his car.

  José opened the driver’s door and stopped, his rumpled fatigues softly lit by the car’s interior. I couldn’t tell if he was gathering his strength to get in the car or his courage to defy the order. He seemed so isolated in the only pool of brightness, and I wanted to go to him. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Too much was at stake. He bent to sit in the car but stood back up.

  “Where are the children?” he asked.

  I looked past his hesitation and imagined I could see our family’s house across the fields. I saw it through long-ago eyes, when my sisters and cousins and relatives-by-circumstance tumbled and played on the wide lawn, and the future held nothing but the possibility of love and laughter.

  “The children are safe,” I said.

  A Glass Swan 1

  THE JOURNALIST DIDN’T look like a Veronica. She was petite, had lovely legs, a pert nose, and always wrapped scarves around her neck. But she was Japanese. During her interview with the editor at the San Diego Sun, he asked her if “Veronica” were her real name. She said, “It’s my American name. I’m an American now.” He nodded his approval. She was excellent at being American. The editor gave her the job, and she was excellent at that too. She inspired a loyal following among the readers of the Women’s pages but kept a low profile. Other lady journalists jockeyed to cover social functions where they met old-money scions or handsome naval officers. Veronica was content to know all about society without being in its midst.

  Her prowess lay in her imagination. Once in a while, while rendering all of those recipes week after week, she loved to attribute a mundane dish to the First Lady. It gave a lift to her readers, especially the patriotic wives and esposas who hung portraits of JFK in their living rooms. Where was the harm? Those overtaxed housewives deserved relief from all of the unsettling talk of A-bomb tests and long-range missiles.

  Jacqueline Kennedy glides into the kitchen of the White House. She strips off her gloves, ties an apron over her green shantung Dior suit, and fingers her pearls while pondering whether to put one egg or two in tonight’s meat loaf. Understanding the significance of such a decision, she phones Laura Petrie, who answers in the kitchen of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Rob Petrie’s wife is whipping up a batch of biscuits but always has time to share a few household tips with the First Lady. After hanging up and rolling out her dough, Laura dials her favorite West Coast reporter to pass along a hot culinary tip.

  Veronica rolled a sheet of paper into her Smith-Corona and typed:

  A reliable source assures me that a certain doña en una casa blanca prepares this Fiesta Meat Loaf for her family when no heads-of-state are in town . . .

  The finished piece sparkled in Veronica’s mind as she handed it off to a passing copy boy. By then it was lunchtime. Most of the Society Page girls preferred to gather in the break room. She needed her place with them, since their meals felt familiar, like those at school back home, where everyone wanted to be exactly the same. Over homemade sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, she gleaned tidbits from the lives of other working women, which she then used to fill up her articles and her imagined home life. None of the girls guessed that the family members who populated her lively Monday morning tales were composites of their own relations. And no one need know that Veronica spent almost every Saturday night alone at home in her tiny bungalow watching the Saturday Night Movie and eating popcorn cooked in bacon grease (a habit she picked up from a transplant from Houston).

  That day she opted for the livelier atmosphere of the Sky Café and the bustle of newsmen crowded around several tables. The restaurant-bar was down the block from the paper, and a regular could get a shot in his morning coffee if his hip flask were empty after a long night. Her favorite newsman, David Wick, beckoned her over as soon as she entered the Sky. He was on the city beat, so sometimes they covered the same event from different angles. The year before, David had published exposés of the deep-pocket connections between city councilmen and the developers of the new Mill Valley Shopping Center. Meanwhile, Veronica advised her readership on outfits to wear to its grand opening. Despite their differing aims, David always had a joke and a flirtation for Veronica. He even asked her out. She didn’t take his offers seriously, as much as she wanted to. She just couldn’t risk it. He kept trying, though, and she appreciated that.

  “Ronnie, come sit over here,” David said to her, trying to shove Stan Phillips out of the seat next to him.

  Stan covered sports, and although he was excitable, he wasn’t easily moved. He swatted back at David but then got up. “I was just leaving, anyway. Veronica, my dear,” he said and held the chair for her to sit.

  Veronica smiled as she picked up the menu. Of course she would have her usual, tuna salad on white, toasted, but she needed something to hide her amusement with Stan. He was a gentleman, the sort that didn’t know what to do with women, so he generally kept his distance. He was always polite and formal with her. If he only knew. She was not a woman, nor was she really American, but those were just hard, useless facts to her. They were not the truth. Look at the way men treated her. That was the truth.

  After Stan left, Veronica nodded at Timmy Nichols and Tommy Thompson across the table. They did leg work for the city beat and were always together. To many they seemed interchangeable, with their flat top haircuts and constant cigarettes, legendary even among the smokestacks of the pressroom. When one was encountered alone, often as not he would be called Timmy-Tommy. But Veronica knew that Timmy had brothers who were cops. He had the back door connections at City Hall and the courthouse. Tommy had drifted into nosing around for a large law firm after the War. He had the smarts. David gave him credit for uncovering the slimy trail that led from the shopping mall to the city council.

  “Veronica Wills, will you marry me?” D
avid said.

  He had said this so often that he no longer bothered to inflect it with a question mark. He didn’t wait for a reply before turning away to nod at the waitress for a refill of his coffee. His cup full, David smiled his thanks.

  “The usual? Extra mayo?” the waitress said to Veronica.

  “You bet, and a Coke. Thanks.”

  David turned the sugar container straight upside down over his coffee. He poured a long cascade and stirred. Veronica waited for him to rat-a-tat a rhythm on the side of his cup, flinging brown spots of coffee around the table, but he didn’t. Instead, he laid his spoon on his plate and subsided into an unnatural quietness.

  “Ronnie, seriously, I have an idea we should work on together,” he said.

  She didn’t trust any idea that could subdue his body like that because he usually couldn’t sit still. His mouth was going: chewing, talking, blowing bubbles. His fingers rattled his typewriter keys or ripped napkins into strips or pocketed small objects that didn’t belong to him. His eyes scanned a room and saw what its occupants were trying to hide, but when his body was still and his brain was ticking, it was time to worry.

  Veronica looked for help, but Timmy rapped Tommy on the arm and said, “We have to get down to the courthouse.”

  Tommy still had Boston cream pie on his plate. He scooped up a large bite and stood. Timmy joined him.

  “Guys, wait,” Veronica said.

  Tommy shrugged, palms open. “Gotta go.”

  The boys took off, and David drew the pie plate over to his side of the table.

  The waitress arrived with Veronica’s order. She nipped at the pickle spear and, after swallowing, said to David, “What is it this time?”

  “I met this Japanese lady, the wife of a lawyer, at a party at Gaujean and Fleck,” he said.

  “How’d you get that invitation?”

  “You know our man, Tommy, used to work there.” He took a bite of the pie. “Turns out our Tommy did the initial background check on the lawyer husband when the firm was looking to hire him. Only the second Japanese at G&F, but even so, he’s a rising star in international business law.”

  “That’s just absolutely fascinating, darling.” Veronica picked up her sandwich. “But I don’t think it’ll make the Society Page.”

  “Very funny. Here’s the interesting part. The wife, she’s from Hiroshima.”

  White flash.

  Veronica recoiled from the memory. She was good at that too. “Not interested.”

  “Hear me out,” David said.

  She bit into her sandwich and said nothing.

  He slurped some coffee. “So Mrs. Kobayashi was just a kid during the War, but her mother could be a really valuable source.”

  “For what?”

  “Civilian take on A-bombs.”

  Veronica shook her head. “It’s been done,” she said, her tone scornful. She wanted no part of this.

  “There’s a new angle since some of the ships from the Christmas Island tests are coming back to SD.”

  “Classified material, surely.”

  “Yeah, but look.” David glanced around before he plucked an envelope from his battered brief case and slid out a photo.

  A giant mushroom cloud bloomed over the ocean and filled the aerial picture. David tapped the bottom of it. There Veronica saw ships inside the bomb’s shock wave. She closed her eyes briefly.

  “Civilians working for the Navy, doing stuff like cleaning these ships, are being exposed to radiation,” he said. “Odds are they don’t know about it or what it means.”

  “How’d you get this?” Veronica had no taste for tuna at the moment.

  He examined the picture without answering.

  “You’re right. I don’t want to know,” she said. “But how are the Hiroshima ladies going to help?”

  “Get this. Mrs. Kobayashi’s mother wasn’t at the party because she was part of an entourage for a Japanese diplomat touring US military installations in the Pacific. I bet A-bomb tests would be on his agenda. Maybe the old lady has even witnessed one of them.” David slipped the photo back into the envelope.

  “But you don’t know that for sure, and she wouldn’t tell you if she had.”

  “You underestimate me. Gotta be careful about that. Anyway, Mrs. Kobayashi and her mother would love to meet Veronica Wills in the flesh. She said so.”

  “And?”

  “Just get me in the door and soften up the old lady a bit. You know, talk about the old country.”

  “David, I’m from Los Angeles.” City of Angels.

  “You’ve never visited your parents’ home?”

  She sipped her Coke. She hadn’t been back once since her crossing to California. “Too expensive.”

  “Come on.”

  Her resistance to anything related to her early life was automatic, had been for years. When she first arrived at the paper, David had asked her if her family had been interned. She borrowed the memories of a roommate in LA and told him about it in satisfying detail, but only on the condition that he wouldn’t use any of it in his articles. She could extract promises like that from him. This time, it would have been easy to deny him if he had flailed around and shouted, but the heat of his crusade radiated out from his stillness.

  She thought for just a second of all the people she had known, lost. Some vaporized, most burnt, others biting back their moans as their bodies melted. She shut memory’s door again, but the horror lingered. He was right. No one else should suffer like that. As long as she could keep the door to the past firmly shut, maybe she could help. Veronica pushed her plate away and took out a cigarette. “You said they wanted to meet me?”

  David grinned and lit her cigarette.

  A Glass Swan 2

  VERONICA STOOD BESIDE David on the tiny porch of Mrs. Kobayashi’s angular ranch house. The husband had to be making good money as an up and comer at Gaujean and Fleck to get into that neighborhood, and Veronica guessed there was another, grander home in the family’s near future.

  When the door opened, David said, “Mrs. Kobayashi, may I present Miss Veronica Wills.” At the last moment, he dipped his head as Veronica had instructed him.

  “Mr. Wick, Miss Wells, please come in,” their young hostess said.

  Veronica could tell she was a modern woman. Her perfect skin glowed with the proper amount of expertly applied makeup. She wore a short, smart hairdo that would give most women a hard edge, but somehow it softened on her by framing her delicate skin and sparkling eyes. She seemed to possess the kind of natural boldness that thrives on American soil. However, David’s formality wouldn’t be lost on the mother lurking somewhere inside. Veronica glided through the door first. The interior matched the modern expectations raised by the design of the house. In the living room, the furniture could well have been assumed to be of Japanese origin, but Veronica recognized Jacobsen’s Egg Chair and the clean, elegant lines of Danish Modern. Most of one wall was dominated by a massive fireplace built out of large horizontal stone blocks. The room had an eclectic personality but was clearly put together with an eye for beauty and harmony. Veronica approved of the design. The family’s butsudan was tucked beside the fireplace. The shrine’s upper doors were open and old black-and-white portrait photographs nestled in among the candles and the incense holder, as if they were there to meet a distinguished guest. She felt honored by the presence of the ancestors.

  Their hostess moved to Veronica’s side and said, “Mother, may I present Mr. David Wick and Miss Veronica Wills of the San Diego Sun. My mother, Mrs. Fuji.” Modern indeed, rushing the introductions like that. David dipped his head as Veronica and Mrs. Fuji bowed. Veronica admired the mother’s high-cheekboned beauty, enhanced by the creases of the years.

  “We are honored to have you in our home,” the mother said. The liquid melody of her voice complemented her accentless English. Suddenly Veronica wished she had family. The mother invited them to sit on the couch. It was the green of pureed broccoli and was low, without cu
shions, with only the slightest curve upward at each end to suggest arms. Veronica found it comfortable despite its sparseness.

  Mrs. Fuji presided over the proceedings from within the curves of the Egg Chair. Her daughter perched on a smaller armchair beside her. Veronica wondered if the mother surrendered her modern throne with its high back to her son-in-law when he was home, but that wasn’t the kind of query that fit into the pleasantries they traded over tea for most of the visit. They began with Veronica’s admiration of a doll collection displayed along one wall and got no deeper than a lively discussion about replacing rice with potatoes in some traditional Japanese dishes. Veronica promised to publish one of the daughter’s updated recipes. The young woman beamed.

  David was restless with the meandering pace, and twice Veronica pulled a miniature glass swan out of his hands before he broke off the fragile wings. What he wanted would take time, more visits, and now that Veronica had met these lovely women, they reminded her of how much she had lost. She didn’t know if she was up to the strain of uncovering buried memories to see it through. To her surprise, though, Mrs. Kobayashi provided a natural opening for David’s coveted topic when she said, “We learned how to substitute during the rice shortages after the War.”

  “We don’t want to bore our guests with unpleasant memories,” her mother said.

  “Mrs. Fuji, we want to hear your memories,” David said. His hands were still. “No rice?”

  Mrs. Fuji turned to Veronica. “You haven’t told us where you are from.”

  “Los Angeles,” she replied. City of the magical makeover.

  The daughter said, “Really. Were you—?”

  “Hiroko-san,” her mother interrupted. “Will you please get more tea cakes?”