“Ma’s sick,” he said. “Been spending time with her up near LA.”
“Sorry to hear that. Hope she’s getting better.”
“A little.”
“Good. Wish her well for me.” Veronica rolled the paper up a few lines and rested her hand on top of her machine. She really had to get this piece finished.
Her colleague didn’t take the hint. He chuckled and said, “She’s the only one won’t call me Tommy.”
“Yeah? What does she call you?” Veronica asked. She red-lined “snappy” and wrote in “dashing.”
“You’re not getting it that easy. Anyway, I’m here about something else. A phone call I got.” Tommy swiveled his head to look at her. “About you.”
Veronica dropped the pencil. This didn’t sound good. “Go on.”
“I know a bunch of people over at Gaujean and Fleck.”
“Um hmm.” Oh no, that was the law firm where David had met Mrs. Fuji’s daughter. Why did he have to go and blurt out the Pacific stuff?
“Sometimes they ask for help. I have to be careful, but if I can help out, I will. They do the same for me. Works out nice. Anyway, a buddy of mine there called. Said a Mrs. Fuji wanted info on our own Veronica Wills, supposedly from LA. She wanted more than the business office is willing to give out, but public stuff, like birthplace, things like that. Said she didn’t want to bother you personally.”
Sure she didn’t. “Why’s your buddy involved?”
“You know this Mrs. Fuji?” Tommy asked.
Veronica waggled her fingers. “Slightly. Nice old lady. David took me to meet her.”
“She’s the mother-in-law of one of the young hotshots in the firm, so what’s my buddy gonna do?”
She nodded. That Mrs. Fuji was crafty—using her son’s position to let Veronica know she was being checked out. Nice old lady, indeed. “Why is she asking about me? Why not David? He’s the one that mentioned something he shouldn’t know about.”
Tommy shrugged. “Maybe she’s going after David also, but we just don’t know it. Anyway, thing was, I was running up to LA anyway to see Ma, so I did a little poking around. No Veronica Wills born in LA.”
“I told her I was adopted.”
Tommy pushed himself up straight in the chair. “You told David . . .”
“That was off the record.”
“Nothing’s off the record. You of all people should know that. Anyway.” Tommy hooked an arm over the back of the chair and gazed past her profile. “You run across all kinds of people in this line of work. Most people who just want to be someone else, someone more than they were at first, well, they usually leave a loose trail. A trick Ma taught me is to look at references. Employment, places to live, stuff like that.”
“She sounds like quite the operator.” Veronica wished she could melt into the bowl’s deep glaze.
“Sure enough, a reference for Veronica Wills turns out—”
“That’s private. Who gave it to you?” She leaned over and jabbed Tommy’s arm with the back end of her pencil. He looked down at his arm and waited. She slowly sat back, gently placed the pencil beside the bowl, and folded her arms. Thousands of times she had told a story to get the story. Tommy was no different.
He huffed out a loud breath. “Turns out to be a boarding house for Japanese immigrants. It’s still there, you know.”
“Sure it is.” Veronica remembered the nosy parker that ran that joint.
“So I get to digging around, asking about someone who maybe was always sending off envelopes to newspapers. Sure, she remembered someone like that. Was the name Fuji, maybe? No, longer, she says. Wait a minute, she says, and goes gets her books. Youji Toshiko, she comes up with. I ask what she remembers and she gives me an odd look, suggested I might find out more at the Japanese American Center.” He pauses but Veronica remains silent.
“Off I go, to the Japanese American Center. I tell the lady there my ma’s sick and asking after an old friend, so she lets me into the archives. Man, the records they keep. They’re very proud of them, you know. They have immigration records listing where everyone is from. Meanwhile, I keep wondering where Veronica Wills is from.”
“I’m American,” she says as if by rote.
“The lady looks through the Osaka list, where your family’s from, maybe.”
“Now look . . .”
“Hold on.” Tommy sat up with a grin. “Hiya, Dave.”
At the sound of David’s name, Veronica put her tingling fingers on the typewriter but couldn’t think of one darned thing to type except “Youji Toshiko.”
“This looks like a conspiracy over here,” David said. He leaned over to examine the empty serving bowl. He looked at Veronica. She pointed to the column she wasn’t getting to write. “What’s going on?”
“Not much, amigo. Ma’s sick. I’m just looking for some womanly advice.”
David stepped back, regret on his face. “Sorry, don’t want to interrupt.”
He hurried off and Veronica realized Tommy had said about the only thing that would send the newsman scurrying.
“Your ma’s sickness seems awfully convenient,” she said. “I’m beginning to suspect that you never even had a mother.”
“Veronica, I’m hurt,” he said. “And you’re avoiding the subject. Which is, this nice lady goes down the list and bingo. She finds Youji Toshiko. Address matches the one at the boarding house.”
“So?”
“Here’s the thing. I tell her thanks for finding Ma’s lady friend and she says I must be mistaken, Youji is a man’s name. I was confused, but told her I must’ve misunderstood Ma.” He stopped talking and hunched over with his elbows on his knees again.
Veronica listened to the clatter of the newsroom. She heard Stan’s hesitant pecking and Timmy’s rapid-fire business typing. She counted the rings of David’s phone at the back of the room. She got to five before Tommy spoke again.
“I had that long drive back from LA to muck around with this stuff. An idea started. Impossible, right? But then, there’s the famous Veronica scarves—always around your neck. And some of the things Dave’s said about your coyness and all. We put it down to Oriental shyness or whatever. But.” Tommy flicked a look at her chest and inspected his shoes. “Tell me I’m bowling down the wrong alley.”
She could keep up the charade, only it wasn’t a charade. She was Veronica Wills, born American. Trouble was, she was also Youji Toshiko. He was born in Hiroshima, and he still lived. Being born American suggested certain freedoms, but would anyone understand that a particular kind of freedom had blossomed from the heart of a disaster? That a city’s worth of dead made resurrection easier?
“You’re smarter than you look,” Veronica said.
“Yeah.” Tommy lit a cigarette and rubbed his palm with his thumb. He flicked a couple of more looks her way, at her hands, her chest, her scarf, her mouth, but he never looked her in the eye. Finally he pulled his reporter’s notebook from his pocket. “My buddy told Mrs. Fuji to call me directly. She called while I was out and left a number.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
Tommy wiped some dust off the tip of his shoe. “Guess I have to tell her that Veronica’s original name was Youji Toshiko. Act like I don’t know what that means.”
“Let me talk to her first.” She unearthed a scrap of paper covered with handwritten notes from her desk and pushed it over to him. He sighed and held up his notebook and copied out Mrs. Fuji’s number. Then he stood and rubbed the top of his buzz cut. “Whatever you tell her, I don’t want to know.”
“Thanks, you’re a pal.”
“Tell that to Ma.”
“I will,” she said. “Guillermo.” Some would be appalled by his Mexican heritage, the way they talked.
He raised his eyebrows. “Touché.” He turned and sauntered toward the exit.
“Wait,” Veronica called.
Tommy looked back at her.
She beckoned and waited until he returned to her desk
. “What are you going to say to David?”
He backed up. Another quick peep at her chest. “Not my place to say anything.” He turned away again.
Chita
A Message from García 3
I HAD SPENT the afternoon scurrying about, bagging and boxing black market chocolate and smoked meat, mamey sapote jelly from the fruit of our tree, American spark plugs, and other items that either we could use on a trek over the mountains or would be as good as currency for our brother if we could leave them with him. After our conversation at the shop, Diego hadn’t spoken at all during dinner. When I wondered aloud about the state of the roads, he just kept his eyes on his plate and tore the crusty bread into crumbs that he didn’t eat. After our silent dinner, he ran a caged construction light out from a plug in the kitchen and hung it on the trellis on the side of the house. He had brought tools home from his shop to tune the car for my journey with Rosita. I watched through the window as he raised the trunk lid and hood.
My beautiful ’56 DeSoto would carry us over the mountains. It was light yellow and white, the colors of lemon sherbet and sweet cream. The government imposed heavy restrictions on gasoline, but what was it if not a government of the people? And those people—individuals—enforced the regulations as they saw fit. Our gas supply flowed more generously than most, shall we say. Don’t ask questions. Earlier, before meeting Diego at the salon, I went out to the rear wall of the side yard to uncover the jugs of extra gas we would carry in the trunk. Travel was difficult, but we had Cuban inventiveness and my Diego kept my machine in perfect running condition. Surely, though, he could use some help under the hood. I went outside. Clouds were low overhead. We would have rain before morning. Would we see Tomasito before nightfall tomorrow?
Diego’s head was deep in the engine compartment. I spoke to the bow of his back. “How are the belts?”
The wing nut of the fan cover and several screws nestled in his old straw hat on the fender. I peered under the hood. Diego torqued a tool deep in the compartment.
“Goddamned whore of an engine,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” I stooped beside him.
He threw an elbow in my direction without looking up. “Get out of my light.” His voice rumbled and seemed to be magnified by the engine compartment.
Sure, I let him feel as if he was in charge, but I, too, am a mechanic, but not by profession. “I’ll check the oil.” I reached under the hood, but he caught my wrist and flung my arm away. My hand smacked the fender. I shook the sting in my hand.
“Leave it.” Diego bent back to his work.
This car had been bought with Montero money, and I took care of it as much as he did. I hooked a finger in the dipstick’s ring and pulled.
Suddenly I slammed against the trellis and felt the oily tip of Diego’s screwdriver at my throat. “I said, leave it.”
“This is my car.” Twigs and leaves pricked my back and arms. My hands went slack and the dipstick dropped to the ground.
“If I pop a hole in your throat.” Diego pushed harder, which forced my chin up. “And I go before a judge—a man—and tell him what you did. He will clap me on the shoulder and set me free to find another wife.”
“Good,” I said with a clenched jaw as some instinct feared impalement through my own movements. But that end to not knowing about the children was better than others. “Then do it.”
A car rolled past outside the gate, the radio voice of El Líder clear in the night. Diego dropped his hands and stepped back. “But you wouldn’t suffer enough for what you and your sisters did.” He shook his head. I stayed pressed against the vines. “Go on.” He waved the screwdriver at the door. “Go to your Monteros.” He spat on my shoe.
My head floated and saliva flooded my mouth. Then I was falling, falling, falling toward the gravel and dead leaves. I saw the dipstick in the dirt. One more thing to clean. I reached for Diego to tell him, but he stepped back. At last my hands crunched on the ground.
The next second I was cradled in Diego’s arms as he knelt between the car and the wall. I struggled to right myself. Fainting on cue was for manipulators, not for me.
“Rosita is supposed to be the one who faints,” I said.
Surely I had only been out for a second, but in the time I was away, Diego had pulled the pins out of my bun and had unbuttoned the top of my blouse. He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back to examine my face. He’d held onto me like that during tender moments, after the boys were asleep. I had an idea.
“Take me to bed,” I said.
He scooped me up and took me inside and into our room, where he laid me on the bed. He closed my suitcase with the brass buckles and moved it to the floor by the big dresser. He turned off the lamps and kept his face averted while he crossed the room to the door. I fanned my hair out on the pillow the way Rosita had taught me as a teenager.
“Diego.”
He stopped with his back to me. I called his name again and waited until he turned. His face looked crumpled and old. I rolled over and allowed my skirt to hitch up to my hip.
“Wash up and come to bed.” I turned my head and waited for the creak of his footsteps to either move up the hall to the bathroom or stamp away from me and back to the car. Neither happened as a muffled swish on the bedroom rug approached me.
Diego speared his fingers in my hair and bunched them into a fist. His other hand alighted on my bare hip and ran down my thigh, pressing hard and skidding on the oil and grit layered on his skin. Never before had Diego come to bed with dirty hands. His hand landed on my mother’s sheet when he knelt on the bed beside me. Even in the dim light I could see the oily gray imprint it left. I would have to scrub hard to get rid of it. Diego had brought other filth into our marriage. The girls in Camagüey Province, the money he lost to those thugs in that import/export scheme.
I looked at the mirror on my dressing table. Reflected there was the yellow glow that spilled in from the hall. We were alone in the house; the door could remain open. I had brought that unspeakable emptiness into our marriage. Diego slipped his hand under my skirt and pressed a grimy finger into me. What were my grievances next to his? I folded my lip between my teeth and opened my legs.
Neither of us slept in the bed that night. Diego returned to the car while I scrubbed all but my most delicate parts with his rough soap. I took it and a brush to the grease smeared on the sheets. I didn’t care if I rubbed a hole in them. I would leave them snow-white for my husband to sleep on while I was away. Then I rechecked my traveling supplies. Late into the night, when all boxes were stacked by the door and rain dripped from the eaves, I curled up on the settee in the living room. I planned an elaborate first meal in America for my boys. Eventually I fell into a light sleep.
I awoke before dawn. I had no idea where Diego had slept, if at all. As far as I knew, he hadn’t reentered the house until I had gotten dressed and made coffee. He leaned against the counter.
“Sit down,” I said.
Diego crossed his ankles and relaxed his arms at his waist, coffee cup cradled against his belly. His hands were clean, his cuticles scrubbed. The birds called to one another in the trees outside. “Wake up, wake up. Time to wake up!”
“Maybe you should take the truck,” Diego said, his head bowed.
The truck was simpler and more reliable, but if I took it, he would be tempted to use the DeSoto in his work. To please the men from Havana, he wouldn’t hesitate to load the back seat with carburetors and mufflers and such. I would never be able to get the filth out of the cream seats. He had sullied enough already.
“We’ll be fine with the car.” I reached out to pat his bare arm, but he slipped out of range.
If Rosita stood in my shoes, she would have had some sweet, supple words to keep her man beside her. I didn’t know what they might be. “Diego. You’ll stay near the phone. Or find someone to listen for it.”
He swung away and stomped to the door. He stopped there and flung his cup back onto the counter. It sk
idded and tipped. I feared it would tumble into the sink and break, but after a precarious moment, it didn’t.
Nor did I. Not that time. “And check the mail. Every day,” I said to his back.
Then he was gone again. Rosita would’ve handled her husband better than I did mine, but she trusted neither herself nor her husband to receive the all-important message. Lola had her duties with the Russians. She always told people that she was the one to do this, she was the one to do that. But only I had the strength to be the first to know. And I was the only one with the strength to get us to Tomasito. Rosita would know what to do when we got there, but I was the one that would get us there. I resisted Diego’s sly spirit that cajoled me to smash the cups in the sink. Instead, I washed and dried them and placed them carefully in the cupboard. Then it was time to go prod Rosita onto the road. With the grace of Jesus and his Mother, I would see my baby brother before that day was over.
A Glass Swan 4
VERONICA THOUGHT LONG and hard about the Mrs. Fuji situation as she sat in her silent bungalow that weekend. She could back out of David’s shenanigans—too risky—which would certainly be the truth, but she didn’t think that would stop Mrs. Fuji. Something in that fleeting look said there was as much at stake on her side as there was on Veronica’s. What could it be? Mrs. Fuji reminded Veronica of her aunt. Despite her uncle’s ban, her aunt usually stopped by every other Wednesday morning with food, clothes, and treats for young Youji. She had eagerly awaited those secret meetings, the sweets her aunt brought, and her light kiss on Youji’s shoulder. The memory of the soft scent of her aunt’s lilac perfume overcame her fear, and she phoned Mrs. Fuji for an appointment. She suggested the following Wednesday.
Mrs. Fuji lamented that her daughter and granddaughter would miss the visit, since they went to the other grandmother’s house every week on that day. Veronica hinted that she actually preferred privacy for this matter. “As you wish,” Mrs. Fuji said.
Veronica selected an Hermes scarf with crimson roses on the morning of their meeting. She believed that a lady must always dress well when discussing delicate matters. She wished that it might take her forever to arrange her scarf, but her hands proved expert even while her mind roiled. Enough procrastination, she told herself. She drove to the Kobayashi home, determined to confront the truth in whatever form the older woman sought. What might she lose? She had lost everything once, and look at her now. She could start over again if she had to, but she didn’t want to. She suspected that it got harder with age.
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