Home Front Lines

by Brenda Sparks Prescott

  Before she had a chance to ring the bell, Mrs. Fuji opened the door. They settled in the living room with cigarettes and coffee from a silver set. After the proper amount of light chat Veronica said, “A message came to me. By way of Gaujean and Fleck.”

  “My son-in-law’s firm sent you a message?”

  “I believe his mother-in-law did. It surprised me that she was so interested in Veronica Wills.”

  “It was the Hat Girl doll.” Mrs. Fuji swept her hand toward the doll collection, as if presenting a lovely gift. “You knew her dress.”

  “Yes, of course. It was very popular.”

  “Only in Hiroshima. Only for a short time. You would know her only if you were . . . not from here.”

  “Ah.” Veronica turned her attention to the crack in her facade. “Oh.” As a child, she wouldn’t have known the limited provenance of the toy. “Yes.” She acknowledged. This Mrs. Fuji was admirable to catch such a tiny slip. But was she friend or foe? Maybe it was already too late to matter. “In that case, I must apologize for a story I told during our visit.”

  Mrs. Fuji folded her hands. “No apology needed. Perhaps you merely wish to correct a misperception?”

  “That’s a kind suggestion. Yes, I wish to clarify.” She snuffed out her cigarette. “Veronica Wills was born American. It’s not as good as being Japanese, but it’s better than being only half in Japan. America is the country of my birth.”

  Mrs. Fuji nodded. “And before?”

  “Youji Toshiko was born in Hiroshima.”

  “Youji?” Mrs. Fuji’s eyes widened and she fingered her strand of perfect pearls. Frown lines marred her smooth forehead. “I am confused. This is a boy’s name.”

  “Youji lived with his mother who didn’t have a husband or an understanding family. Until the bomb fell and his mother died.” Veronica remembered his aunt’s singsong prayer for the dead. “Then he . . . died too.”

  Veronica studied her hands and waited.

  Mrs. Fuji carefully poured more coffee into each cup. She picked up the creamer and stood. “Please excuse, I must refill this.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  Veronica feared that she had gone too far as she shook out another cigarette but didn’t light it. She tossed the pack onto the coffee table, where it came to rest against the glass swan. She wished she had let David rip the wings off the stupid thing. Look at it. Ignorant that its own thin, graceful neck could be snapped with the merest twitch of the thumb, and then what would make it beautiful? It would be nothing but dressed up sand, and its trials in the fire would be worthless.

  Mrs. Fuji returned and set the creamer on the tray before composing herself in her seat, ankles crossed, hands clasped, and eyes lowered. She opened her mouth but closed it again without speaking. She nudged the cigarettes away from the swan. “My mother told me that secrets have a way of finding each other. I know this to be true, but I could not imagine that this was the secret that would find my own.” She glanced at the family butsudan. Today the doors were closed.

  Veronica had no idea what Mrs. Fuji’s secret might be, so she kept silent. She heard the clank of the mailbox from outside and guessed that if she turned around to the window behind her she would see the receding back of the mailman’s blue uniform. She wondered what it was like to move from house to house each day, carrying pieces of people’s lives and dispensing hope and dismay from your heavy, government-issued satchel.

  “Your young man mentioned a curious subject just as you were leaving last time.” Mrs. Fuji sank back into the bowl of her chair and rested her forearms on its curved sides. She appeared to relax but her direct gaze suggested that she was as relaxed as a coiled snake.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fuji, but he is not my young man.”

  “He wants to be. Even an old grandmother could see that. You must be careful. A man who has been . . . mesmerized by a dream . . . may be perturbed if awakened.” She leaned forward and gestured at the coffeepot.

  Veronica shook her head to the offer. “Yes, I understand what you mean. And I apologize for his lack of refinement. He’s a terrific newsman, has a razor-sharp instinct for rooting out injustice and corruption, but that means sometimes his good manners go out the window when someone is being hurt.”

  “Is someone being hurt?”

  I am, Veronica thought. This was exactly what she feared. She had agreed to make the connection with a possible source for David, but her history had been exposed and now she was jammed between David’s suspicions of nuclear contamination and Mrs. Fuji’s surveillance. Did this have something to do with the secret her host had just mentioned? Veronica had so many secrets. Was it possible that Mrs. Fuji had just one?

  She too leaned back, but the sofa had no real arms on which to rest her own. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. Shall I tell him you’d like to talk?”

  “What about?”

  This woman was not going to let her off the hook. “I really don’t know any specifics. He just wanted me to make the introductions.”

  “I am very busy.”

  Veronica had had enough. “Were you in the Pacific?”

  “Sometimes my translation work takes me to different places.”

  “He showed me pictures. Of ships. And a cloud.” That was all she was going to say. Honestly. “You were there, back home,” she blurted before she could catch herself.

  Mrs. Fuji stilled even more, although until that moment Veronica hadn’t realized that was possible. It frightened her. She remembered her mother’s stillness in the rubble. Her mind always went to the lucky friend who spent his last moments sheltered by her mother. Until now. Of course her mother had covered the boy. A mother’s instinct is to protect a child, even one not her own. Veronica’s anger had separated her from her mother at the critical time that day. Her mother had gathered in the nearest boy, but she must have died panicked and wondering about her own son.

  Sorrow cascaded from Veronica’s chest, leaving her breathless for one long moment. Finally she gulped air. As she gasped, Mrs. Fuji tilted her head slightly. She maintained the stoic facade of a Samurai, but she was a mother. She would understand.

  “Everyone on the ships,” Veronica said. “They all have mothers.”

  Mrs. Fuji covered her mouth and glanced at the butsudan. It was her first telling movement, but what did it say? Veronica may never know, but somehow she seemed to have touched something in the other woman’s heart.

  Her host went over to the butsudan and opened its doors. She gazed into it for a long time. These family heirlooms often had secret compartments, some which would destroy their own contents if smashed open. The grandfather clock chimed the half hour. Mrs. Fuji reached inside the shrine, causing most of her body to momentarily disappear from sight. She emerged holding a business envelope with the sealed flap outward. Veronica couldn’t tell if its top had been slit, or in fact what this envelope had to do with their current standoff.

  “You’re right. Everyone has a mother.” Mrs. Fuji came to sit on the couch. She smothered the letter to her chest. “Your mother sent you to help me, even if we never tell your young man.”

  “Tell him what?”

  Mrs. Fuji laid the envelope on the couch between them. It was addressed in an angular hand to a Mrs. Betty Ann Johnson at a Maryland Air Force base.

  “This,” Mrs. Fuji said.

  Chita

  A Message from García 4

  ROSITA AND I had planned to leave right after sunrise, but by the time she got to the last “one more thing,” the morning had aged. I was to drive the entire way, as my sister didn’t drive in the country, or in the rain, or during the full moon, or when she feels one of her spells coming on. How we indulged her. She made a nest for herself in the passenger seat, with food bags, the water jug, and a vanity case crowding her feet. I drove to and then southeast along the Central Highway that travels the spine of the country. Half the day passed before I turned onto the rough road that led into the Escambray Mountains. All that way we
spoke of nothing of consequence, but as the tires chattered over the impotent patches in the road, Rosita finished a long tale about her neighbor’s losing attempt to hang onto a large house near the water. I hadn’t been listening for quite a while, so when she paused, I realized she had asked a question.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What did Diego say when you told him?”

  How dare she ask me this. I wouldn’t have had to say anything if her husband hadn’t been too useless for this mission to the east.

  “What did Ramón say when you told him?” I countered.

  “I haven’t said anything to him,” Rosita said.

  She stared intently out her window. She thought I didn’t know about her and Ramón. She would be too weak to keep such a horrible secret from him, and he would be too cowardly to stop her from taking his children. I wished I had her penchant to spill everything. If I had told Diego before, I would still have my boys with me. He’s too much of a man to be ruled by skirts, no matter how well-meaning. Oh, for a slack backbone like Rosita’s.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’m not Lola, your worshipping acolyte.” Although I had been, once, before I realized that Rosita would always get what I wanted. “I’m as sure of you telling Ramón as I am that this road is full of holes.” I jutted my chin to indicate the rising road ahead.

  Rosita inhaled and opened her mouth as if to retort, but instead she arrested all movement and stared straight ahead. “What’s that?”

  I turned my attention back to the road. A man with a donkey cart appeared just far enough ahead to look small. Since he hadn’t been there a minute before, I assumed he had climbed onto the crown of the road from the brush that grew high beside it. “Just a poor old man—” In a move too agile for an old man, he swerved the cart to block the road. By this time another man, clothed in a ragged T-shirt and work pants, ran out of the bush and took a stance behind the cart. Even from this range, I could see that both men were armed with rifles.

  “Boys!” I started to warn, but the mirror told me there were no children sitting among the crates in the back seat. My God, where were my boys? Rosita whipped a look at me but said nothing.

  I slowed to a crawl but kept the car moving toward the blockade. I couldn’t yet tell the allegiance of these campesinos. Perhaps they woke each morning and flipped a coin. Soon they would know that we were two women traveling alone, although thankfully, not entirely alone.

  “Rosita, the glove compartment.”

  She opened it and looked at me. Her cheeks were pale but her eyes were steady. At a moment like this, we breathed as one.

  “Behind the first-aid kit. Diego’s pistol.”

  She shoved through the papers and tools and retrieved the gun, wrapped in soft white cloth.

  Rosita unwrapped it as we approached the men. She checked the barrel, flicked off the safety, and then buried the gun under her purse on the seat between us. She pulled her scarf from her neck and added it to the camouflage. Despite all her girlish ways, Rosita was an expert markswoman. Papi made sure all his girls knew how to shoot. Rosita was the best of all of us. As we closed in enough to see the men’s grinning faces, we rolled up the windows. Rosita then pulled an ivory-handled derringer out of her vanity case and slipped it into the crack of the seat. I had to smile, even at that tense moment. Leave it to romantic Rosita, with her Hollywood notions, to carry what we called “the lover’s mouthpiece.” It wouldn’t stop a large animal, and it fired only two shots at a time, but it did excellent close work. I prayed that we wouldn’t have to test its prowess.

  We rolled to a stop. We had turned off the highway minutes before and were already elevated above its grade. In the rearview mirror, a Jeep whizzed past far behind us. It was too far away to be of any help. Even with the loudest horn a car could have, we couldn’t hope to draw attention to our situation. Up ahead, the pitted road rounded a bend and disappeared into the hills. Where we had stopped, it dropped away into a ditch on both sides, and the ground leveled out into a scrub plain. To our right, a railed platform jutted across the ditch and into some thick bushes. They hid a platform from all angles of view except this one. A feed bag hung off one side. Apparently the donkey could be kept quite happy as these bandits, or government officials, or both, waited for their prey. The taller man aimed his semiautomatic at us as he circled the car and peered in all the windows. He lingered over the boxes stacked in the back seat. We had packed carefully for just this kind of situation. We stored some of our most tempting black market wares at the top of each box, ready to be uncovered and offered. If these men weren’t too greedy, we could get away with our most valuable possessions.

  The tall man reported back to the shorter one. A restless wind ruffled the bushes. Far overhead, buzzards circled. I hoped they weren’t waiting for us. At last the short man approached my door. His hair was thick and matted with dirt. He opened his mouth and revealed bare gums where his front teeth should have been. He tapped my window, which I rolled down just enough for words to pass.

  “More,” the short man said. He turned a cranking motion with his hand.

  Rosita leaned into me. Her hair brushed my shoulder.

  “Please forgive me,” I said. “I don’t know you.”

  “I am the law,” he said.

  Yes, I thought. Here you are the law. You have the advantage of physical power, but we are Monteros. His companion was a long wisp of a man with a full beard that didn’t hide the smoothness of his young face. His hands on the rifle, though calloused, were too small and fine-boned for a man of his height. No wonder he terrorized innocent travelers. The tall one swaggered over to the cart and picked up something I couldn’t see. When he turned, he held it against his thigh. The short one stood close to my door. He didn’t have formal police training, or else he wouldn’t have stepped close like that. I could take him out with a hard swing of my door and a few judicious shots, but we would have to pass back this way to return home. Riling the campesinos along the only road you can travel didn’t seem a good idea.

  “Is this your car?” the short man asked.

  “It’s my husband’s.” No need to go into nuances.

  “And where is he?”

  “Back home, working a commission from El Líder.”

  The short man straightened up at the mention of our president. “Your husband works for him?”

  “Don’t we all?” Rosita said. She nudged Diego’s pistol against my back. I knew exactly where it was if I needed it.

  “Quit the games,” the bearded one said.

  He had slithered over to Rosita’s side of the car. In a flash, he raised a thin strip of metal and jammed it down into the car door. The lock popped with a click. He swung the door open and blocked our exit. Rosita pressed back against me, her hand buried in the seat crack. I slipped my fingers around the butt of the pistol and prayed.

  The bearded one touched the tip of his tool to Rosita’s ankle and ran it slowly up her leg until it lifted her skirt. “And your husband, Señora?” He flipped her skirt with a flick of his wrist and exposed more leg than was proper.

  “He’s keeping the people in shoes.” Rosita spoke as if we were sitting in our old social club, sipping drinks, and passing the time. Perhaps the feel of the hideaway gun kept her calm.

  The short man joined the bearded one on Rosita’s side of the car. They had similar cheekbones and the same pointy nose.

  “He should know better than to let you out of his sight,” the short man said. I decided he was the older of the two.

  “Are you brothers?” I asked.

  “What’s it to you?” the bearded one said.

  “Señor, I’m surprised at you,” Rosita said. “We’ve been traveling all day, hardly seeing a soul, and now when my sister tries to be pleasant, you tempt us to believe the rumors about the rudeness of provincials.”

  “Believe what you want,” the bearded one said. He would get no certificate for diplomacy.

  “Of course,” Rosita said as if she
was in charge. “We have gifts for you and your compadres, and then we must be on our way. We’re trying to get to Campo Doblase before dark.”

  The short man grinned and the bearded one laughed outright. “It’s already dark at Campo Doblase.”

  “What do you mean?” Rosita snapped out of her studied lounge into a stiff formality. “What do you know about it?” I wouldn’t trust any answer these two might give. We would be better off not hearing their lies.

  The bearded one shook his head and put a foot up on the running board. “You’re not going anywhere until we say so.” He smelled of cane and hard work.

  Rosita pulled her pistol hand free and leaned forward to touch the shoe on the running board. It was of Russian issue. One could tell by the sickly gray of the inferior material, whatever it was. Apparently, it had fallen apart long before, as two pieces of twine bound the sole to the upper but didn’t prevent a substantial gap at the toes.

  “My God. A man of your stature shouldn’t be shod like this.” Rosita tapped the shoe again. “Here.” She hoisted an arm over the seat back and flicked open a box. The Spanish shoes sat right on top, gleaming brown even in the shadows inside the car. She grabbed them up and sat back with the shoes in her lap.

  “These are for you.” She tilted them as if to measure their size and leaned forward to inspect our comrade’s foot. “They should fit.”

  Our comrade may have been an intelligent man, but his simple thought process in that moment flowed across his young face. He stared at the shoes, taking in the fancy tool work and the supple leather. They easily would’ve cost a year’s wages for a campesino, even if he had the means to find them himself. He would be the envy of all he knew if he took them. Then his eyes wandered down Rosita’s legs and up and over the seat to the parcels stashed there and on to the unknown treasures in the trunk. He broke into the smile of a man who had just surveyed a new kingdom. He could have all of it, he thought. I calculated a shot straight into his heart.