The Radical Element

by Jessica Spotswood

  More murmurs travel through the audience, but I continue, keeping my tone light, though my knees tremble. “If you’re looking for an American face, a face with a family history of loyalty to your brand, you need look no further.” I spread my arms like a grand dame of the American theater.

  The theater goes quiet, and suddenly the darkness feels brittle, as if the whole thing could shatter apart with the flick of a finger. But then someone begins to clap — Pops — and a polite applause rises to meet his. It sounds like summer rain.

  A woman says, “Let’s move on to your talent. Robert, bring out the girl’s instrument.”

  A young man in a red attendant’s uniform hurries to meet me, my ukulele in his hands. He shakes his head, hazel eyes wide with confusion. “I’m sorry, miss,” he whispers, handing me the wood, “that’s how I found it.”

  All four strings hang limply, severed in the middle. How?

  I can hardly breathe. The strings can be replaced later, but the prank feels like an injury against Oba herself. Tears begin to collect in my eyes, but I refuse to release them. Who could’ve done this?

  The manicure scissors. Martha and her spiteful, flicking fingers, telling me that I am lint she can neatly flick away. If ever I thought the devil had two horns and a pitchfork, I was wrong. The devil has flaxen hair and high heels, and she wields her wheelbarrow like a steamroller in her quest to conquer the mountain.

  The woman announcer clears her throat. “Er, is everything okay, Miss Lau?”

  “Yes.” Keep swimming, keep moving, and you can be the king of the ocean just like the sharks, Oba says in my ear. I affix her unwavering smile on my lips and hold out my instrument by the neck. “I knew I shouldn’t have washed my guitar in hot water.”

  A few people laugh. I hand my damaged ukulele back to the attendant, who ferries it away.

  Now what?

  “More jokes!” yells Pops.

  I cough, highly doubtful that Sugar Maiden is looking for a comedian to represent America’s sugar. Then again, telling a few jokes surely beats my current impersonation of a curtain. I’d rather be pelted by tomatoes than go down without a fight. Martha is probably in the audience, counting down to victory.

  I say a prayer, then raise my chin. “Did you hear about the peanuts walking late at night?”

  “No,” a man throws back.

  “One was a-salted.”

  No one reacts for a moment. But then someone giggles, someone with a voice like a rusted hinge. It’s Maude, maybe even Judy. My cheeks flush in pleasure that she stayed. Her laugh oils the way for others.

  “But that’s nothing compared to the fight at the aquarium,” I continue, my voice coming stronger. I shake my head in mock sadness. “Two fish got battered.”

  More laughter rolls out, and a few jokes later, I’m rewarded by cheers and shouts for more.

  I bask in the glow of the audience’s approval, approval lit by a father’s love. Fifty miles away, Mother is wolf whistling. On a cloud even farther, Oba blows me a kiss. Suddenly I don’t care so much about winning this particular contest. Battle has been waged in this theater, and Lana Lau is still standing tall.

  The first time I went to Hawaii, I was struck by how strange it felt to be among so many Asian Americans. It was the closest I’d ever come to feeling like part of the “majority.” It may come as a surprise to some that the sugar industry was responsible for the Pan-Asian traditions of our fiftieth state. As California’s Gold Rush expanded settlement of the West Coast, demand for agriculture from Hawaii surged. Miners found that it was cheaper to import things from Hawaii than across the American interior. Faced with a limited workforce, the sugar plantations, tightly controlled by missionary families, began importing Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipino laborers to meet this increased demand. These plantation owners played a large role in the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, for which President Bill Clinton issued a formal apology in 1993.

  During World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of “enemy aliens” from the West, those Japanese in Hawaii got off relatively “easy” compared to their mainland counterparts. Of the 157,000 Japanese living in Hawaii — one-third of Hawaii’s population — less than 2,000 were put in camps, compared to 100,000 of the 126,000 interned on the mainland. Why? Economics. Interning one-third of Hawaii’s population would have been disastrous for the economy.

  As President Clinton stated in his apology letter sent to Japanese Americans interned during World War II, “In retrospect, we understand that the nation’s actions were rooted deeply in racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a lack of political leadership. We must learn from the past and dedicate ourselves as a nation to renewing the spirit of equality and our love of freedom. Together, we can guarantee a future with liberty and justice for all.”

  I.

  Susana and Martha stopped at the corner on their way home.

  “Your turn,” Martha said. She untucked her blouse and handed over a tattered copy of Rosemary’s Baby, the cover sweaty from being stashed in her waistband since lunch. “You’ve got a week. Then it goes to Mina.”

  Susana slid the book deep inside her bag. The girls in their civics class had been sharing it, though it gave them nightmares. The Sisters at Christ the King School had banned it, which was all the more reason to read it.

  They started along again, arms linked, even though it made them look like old ladies instead of sophomores. Susana didn’t mind. At least Martha never teased about Susana’s faint accent. (Shicken, some girls mimicked.) She never asked unanswerable questions, either, like How do you say shithead in Spanish?

  They had gone halfway up the block when Martha slowed and squinted at a point in the distance. “Is that his car?” she asked. She was so stubborn about wearing glasses. Susana always had to tell her what was written on the blackboard.

  “Yes,” Susana said. “It’s Tommy.”

  “He’s early.” Martha’s new boyfriend sat at the wheel of his yellow Mustang, the engine idling. The girls could hear the rumble from here.

  “We’re going to Flushing Meadow to skate,” Martha said. “You could come along.”

  Susana unlinked her arm and adjusted her book bag. “Not today,” she said, and smiled as best she could manage. “Too much biology homework.”

  But they both knew it wouldn’t be today or any day in the near future. Susana’s parents had strict ideas about things, especially American boys.

  When they reached the car, Martha hopped in and offered Tommy a peck on the cheek. Then she took Susana’s hand and squeezed it. “Call me tonight when you get to the good part.”

  Susana waved as the engine roared and they pulled away.

  Skating? she thought. Knowing Martha, definitely not.

  II.

  She sat reading on the closed toilet lid that night, while her parents entertained guests in their living room. The bathroom was the only place no one would come looking for her, asking her to join them.

  This time it was a man named Gustavo, who had dark circles under his eyes. He’d come this morning to rent the studio apartment next door, only to be told that it had already been taken. Now, at ten o’clock at night, he’d come back to see her father for advice.

  New arrivals from Cuba like Gustavo always made Susana nervous. They usually came to ask her father about jobs at the office building where he cleaned, but their mouths overflowed with stories of wives stranded on the island or in Spain, with tales of having been cheated by bosses, with despair. Their problems seemed too big and tangled for anyone to fix.

  She got to the end of her chapter and put her ear to the door before opening it a crack. The smell of Gustavo’s cigarette smoke was overpowering.

  “I’m not particular, you understand,” he was saying as he rose from his folding chair. “Un trabajo cualquiera, hermano, so long as it pays. I have my girls to think about.”

  “Of course,” her father said, lett
ing him out. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Susana slipped quietly into her room to get ready for bed, listening as he chained the front door.

  A book can bring bad dreams, but memories are more efficient enemies. Soldiers know this. Children of war. And Susana.

  Mami has cooked with the shutters closed all day.

  Her hair smells of orange and garlic,

  and sweat fills the creases behind her knees.

  “This is a secret, just for our family.

  Don’t tell anyone.

  Promise me, angelito.

  Do you understand?”

  Mami has asked her many times.

  Then a knock at the door turns her family into statues.

  Papi is the first to break the stone and get to his feet.

  Someone hurries her toward her room at the back of the house.

  Through the cracked door, she watches Mami slide their oily pork secret

  into their laundry hamper, burying the contraband with dirty clothes.

  Then Papi unlatches the wrought-iron gate with a loud squeak

  and Fela’s voice floats back.

  She is the lady next door who used to give us cookies,

  the one Mami calls the Spy.

  III.

  “Remember Lázaro, who sold ice cream back in Sagua?” her mother asked.

  Susana shifted a bit in the kitchen chair. Outside, a looping jingle was blaring from the speakers of the ice-cream truck that was still making its rounds, though it was already autumn. It made it hard to concentrate on her homework. Math had never been her favorite.

  “The tall one?” Susana was always carefully vague in answering questions like this. Otherwise she could get stuck in one of her mother’s long stories of the past. They hadn’t lived in Cuba since Susana was four, but Iris still talked about neighbors and specific streets as if it had all been yesterday instead of twelve years ago.

  “Sí, claro.” Iris turned from the stove where she was frying bananas. “He sold coconut ice cream. You were crazy for it and always begged Abuelo to buy you some. Lázaro had a lazy eye. Remember?”

  “That’s right,” Susana mumbled.

  Iris smiled, satisfied. She lowered the flame and speared the sliced plátanos with her cooking fork. “Si Dios quiere, when your grandparents finally get here, we’ll buy them all the ice cream they want.”

  “Yes.” Susana closed her book a little harder than she intended, thinking of Carmen at school, who now shared a twin bed with her aunt, who had arrived that July.

  She went to the window and watched the kids outside clamoring for Bomb Pops. The truth was that when her grandparents finally arrived, Susana’s life would be upended, much like Carmen’s. Iris had it all planned, in fact. Susana would sleep near the stove in the kitchen’s eat-in alcove, a curtain strung up for privacy. Susana wouldn’t be able to sneeze without someone knowing.

  Unless.

  Rumors were circulating that President Nixon might soon suspend the Vuelos de la Libertad, which had been ferrying refugees to the States for seven years. Her mother had cried bitterly a week earlier when she’d heard about the precariousness of the Freedom Flights. “Then what happens?” she’d wailed. “Our family will never see each other again!”

  It was a terrible thing to want. Heartless and selfish. Susana knew this. And yet, it was her only hope.

  Susana didn’t like to remember Cuba, not Lázaro or ice cream or her grandparents or anything else that her mother mourned. What was the point? They were living here now. The break from their country had already knit together inside her, misshapen like unset bone, but done.

  IV.

  The newly elected leadership of el Club Cubano of Queens was waiting to enjoy finger sandwiches in the Riveros’ living room when the intercom buzzed. Martha was downstairs.

  “We’re going to Rockaway to swim,” she said when Susana pressed Talk. “The water’s still warm. Come on!” It was September, but summer hadn’t released its heavy grip. Even with the fans blasting, Susana’s blouse was sticking to her skin. In this heat, she wanted to be anywhere but inside the plaster walls of their apartment in Corona. She decided to take a chance.

  She released the button and found her mother in the kitchen.

  “Can I go to the beach with Martha, Mamá? It’s just for a little while. And it’s so hot.”

  Iris clicked her tongue. “Niña! And what am I going to do with all these ladies by myself?” She had just been installed as the president of the club, and this was her first official meeting. There were events to plan, finances to go over, and the Woolworth’s reimbursements to finalize.

  “Please,” Susana said.

  Iris gave her an exasperated look and tossed down her dishrag. Then she peered out the window at the street below where Tommy was parked behind a rented moving van. Susana’s stomach squeezed as she stood behind her mother. Iris had a long list of qualities for young people that she had dragged with her across the ocean. Decent girls, for example, should wear polished shoes and avoid torn jeans, which made them look like hippies. Susana had tried to explain that patches (KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ or even a peace sign) were just a fashion here, not character flaws. Even the nicest girls at school had jean jackets covered with patches that they melted on with irons. But Iris was firm.

  Glancing down at Tommy, Susana knew it was hopeless. He wore mirrored sunglasses and smoked as he waited. A disaster.

  “With that sinvergüenza? De eso nada,” Iris said. “Your father would kill me. Now, help me with these trays.”

  Susana walked back to the intercom, hating herself almost as much as her mother. “Can’t today. See you Monday.” She didn’t wait for a reply. A moment later, the roar of the car came from below.

  With a cold look over her shoulder, her mother uncovered the perfect tower of deviled ham sandwiches and headed out to the living room.

  “¿Un bocadito?” Susana held out the tray for the club officers as her mother looked on in sickening approval. They’re too salty, Susana thought with satisfaction. Not that anyone would complain about her mother’s recipe. After all, everyone knew they were lucky not to be like their relatives back home, where there wasn’t a ham sandwich to be had, with or without a ration card.

  The ladies were gathered on the plastic-covered sofa, thick legs crossed at the ankles. In no time they were chatting about towns Susana didn’t know and families she’d never met who had scattered as far as Canada, those poor frozen souls. The women smelled of Aqua Net as Susana leaned in to offer seconds, their hair sprayed expertly into more or less the same bouffant as her mother’s, acquired at Julia’s House of Beauty for three dollars on Fridays.

  “Susana, you have gotten so beautiful,” Blanca said. “Just like your mother.” The new treasurer was a round-faced woman with large brown eyes. “My Enrique tells me you are the number one student in science class this year. Is that true?” She plucked a particularly fluffy triangle from the tray and sank her dentures into the bread.

  Susana’s cheeks flushed. The smell of ham and the heat were making her dizzy, so she glued her eyes to the colonial scene on the platter’s edges. The blue-and-white images were like something from her fourth-grade American history textbooks. (North American history, her father liked to correct.) Ladies in big hoopskirts, holding parasols.

  “Mi amor, habla,” her mother coaxed. “She’s so shy, Blanca. I’m sorry.” She gave Susana a pained look and motioned her toward the other ladies, still waiting.

  “I just like biology, I guess,” Susana replied glumly. (A lie.) “It’s not very hard.”

  “Maybe you’ll be a nurse, then,” Frida said, surveying the tray Susana offered. She had worked in a pediatric ward in Havana, but English had been her undoing and kept her from passing her exams here. At her age, Frida claimed, a new language was practically insurmountable. For now she worked at Flushing Hospital in the cafeteria, telling the Dominican cooks racy jokes. She served as secretary for the club, too, and her typed directory
almost never had errors.

  “Or even a doctor,” Iris added. “Hoy día . . .” She twirled her wrist as if flicking off a concern and then lowered her voice, a habit from when her husband was home. “No one has to wear an apron anymore, you know.”

  The ladies nodded and laughed.

  A doctor? Susana bit her tongue as she kept circulating. God forbid! She did have good grades, but she had absolutely no interest in medicine. She found the smell of alcohol unnerving, and even paper cuts made her queasy.

  “Médico, enfermera . . . it doesn’t matter. She’ll be something wonderful, and she’ll make enough money to take care of you when you’re old,” Blanca said brightly.

  Susana glanced at the clock. Was it stuck?

  “You know,” Blanca continued, “I have a handsome nephew who is thinking of studying law one day.” She arched her brow coyly at Susana. “Te lo voy a presentar . . .”

  Susana’s tray lurched to the right, and a few sandwiches tumbled into Frida’s lap.

  “Careful!” said Iris, steadying it.

  “Sorry,” Susana mumbled. Her mother’s friends had begun making alarming personal offers like this lately, hoping for una muchacha fina! Someone they could talk to without a Spanish-English dictionary in their pocket. Their clean-cut sons came to the club dances twice a year to sit with their families, sweating in their polyester blend shirts. But they seemed as dull to Susana as the sandwiches on the platter — and left her just as thirsty, too.

  Susana had dark longings for another kind of boyfriend altogether, someone American and a little indecent, if possible. Maybe she’d take up with a boy who had thick sideburns or even long hair. (How her mother gossiped about boys with melenas!) She wanted someone like one of stars of The Mod Squad, a show her mother had despised after she’d learned the backstory of the young detectives on the show: A drug addict. A criminal. A runaway. “¡Qué barbaridad!” she’d said. “Delinquents! Even worse than the Beatles!”