Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

  only reply was "No comment."

  "I can't watch this anymore," Keiko said, stalking away.

  "I'm sorry I brought you here," Henry offered as they walked to the edge of South Main, where they would split up for their separate walks home. "I'm sorry our big night was ruined."

  Keiko halted and looked at Henry. She looked down at his button, the one his father made him wear. "You are Chinese, aren't you, Henry?"

  He nodded, not knowing how to answer.

  "That's fine. Be who you are," she said, turning away, a look of disappointment in her eyes. "But I'm an American."

  I Am Japanese

  (1986)

  Henry woke to the sound of a police cruiser, its siren wailing in the distance. He'd dozed off a bit, daydreaming, on the long bus ride from Lake View Cemetery all the way back down to the International District--the I.D., as Marty called it.

  Henry covered his mouth in a yawn and looked out the window. To him the area northeast of the Kingdome was simply Chinatown. That's what he'd called it growing up, and he wasn't likely to change now--despite the influx of Vietnamese karaoke clubs, Korean video stores, and the occasional sushi bar, frequented by a mainly Caucasian lunch crowd.

  Marty didn't know much about Henry's childhood. Henry talked about his youth only in reflection, as he told stories about his own parents--Marty's grandmother, mainly.

  Or occasionally the grandfather Marty never knew. The lack of meaningful communication between father and son was based on a lifetime of isolation. Henry had been an only child, without siblings around to talk to, to share things with constantly.

  And Marty was the same. Whatever stumbling methods of communication Henry had used with his own father seemed to have been passed down to Marty. Over the years, they'd both used Ethel to bridge that gap, but now Henry would have to ford the divide himself He just wasn't sure what to tell his son and when. For one growing up Chinese, decorum and timing were everything. After all, Henry hadn't spoken to his own parents, not much anyway, for three years--during the war.

  But now, deep down, Henry wanted to tell his son everything. How seemingly unfair life was in retrospect, and how remarkable it was that they'd all just accepted what they had and made the best of it. He wanted to tell his son about Keiko--and about the Panama Hotel. But Ethel had only been gone six months. Sure, she'd been gone seven years and six months, but Marty probably wouldn't understand. It was too soon to tell him. And besides, what was there to tell now? Henry didn't know exactly.

  Thinking of that painted bamboo parasol, Henry did his best to reconcile his feelings--the loss of Ethel, and the possibility of something to be found in the basement of that broken-down hotel. He'd lamented what else might be down there, right under his nose all these years, and wondered how much he could allow himself to hope for, how much his heart could take. But he couldn't wait any longer. A few days had passed, the news had come and gone. It was time to find out.

  So Henry found himself stepping off the bus three stops early and wandering over to the Panama Hotel, a place between worlds when he was a child, a place between times now that he was a grown man. A place he had avoided for years, but now he couldn't keep himself away.

  Inside, there were dusty workers in hard hats everywhere Henry looked. The water-stained ceiling tiles were being replaced. The floor was being sanded down to its original finish. The walls in the upstairs hallway were being sandblasted. The noise from the compressor alone made Henry cover his ears as he watched dust and grit settle at the top of the staircase.

  Aside from the occasional transient who broke in a back window, or the flocks of pigeons that made their roost in the rooms of the upper floor, no one had occupied the hotel since 1949. Even when Henry was a boy, it had been sparse and half-empty Especially during and after the war, from around 1942 all the way to V-J Day. Since then it had been abandoned.

  "Is Mr. Pettison here?" Henry yelled the question over the screaming sounds of power saws and sandblasters to the construction worker closest to him. The man looked up and pried back his ear protection.

  "Who?"

  "I'm looking for Palmer Pettison."

  The worker pointed to an old coatroom that appeared to have been transformed into a temporary office while the building was undergoing its rehab. From the various blueprints and construction documents pinned to a corkboard just outside the room, it looked like the hotel was on its way back to its former glory.

  Henry took his hat off and stuck his head in. "Hello, I'm looking for Mr. Pettison."

  "I'm

  Ms. Pettison--Palmyra Pettison. I'm the owner, if that's who you're looking for. Who am I talking to?"

  Henry nervously introduced himself, talking faster than he normally would. His heart was racing just being in the old hotel--the place frightened and excited him. It was a forbidden place, according to his father's rules, a place deeply mysterious and beautiful.

  Even with all the neglect and water damage, the hotel was still stunning inside.

  "I'm interested in the personal belongings that were found in the basement--the stored belongings."

  "Really? It was an amazing discovery. I bought the building five years ago, but it took me five whole years to get the financing and approvals for the renovation. Before we started doing some of the interior demolition, I wandered down to the basement to inspect the furnace--and there it all was. Steamer trunks and suitcases, row after row, piled to the ceiling in some places. Are you looking to buy something?"

  "No, I'm ..."

  "Are you from some museum?"

  "No

  ..."

  "Then what can I do for you, Mr. Lee?"

  Henry rubbed his forehead, a little flustered. He wasn't used to dealing with fast-talking business folk. "I don't know how to say this--I'm just looking for something, I don't really know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it."

  Ms. Pettison closed the ledger at her desk. The look on her face somehow told Henry that she understood. "Then you must be a relative?"

  Henry was surprised that after forty-some-odd years, people still on occasion thought he was Japanese. He thought about the button his father had made him wear each and every day--all those months at school, even during the summer. How he was taught by his parents to be ultra-Chinese, that his family's well-being depended on that ethnic distinction. How he had hated being called a Jap at school. But life is nothing if not ironic.

  "Yes! I'm Japanese." Henry bobbed his head. "Of course I am. And I'd really like to look around if I could." If that's what it takes to get in the basement, I'll be Japanese.

  I'll be a blue-blooded half-Martian Canadian immigrant if that's what it takes, he thought.

  "Just write your family's name on the list," she said and handed Henry a clipboard. "You can go on down and take a look. I'd just ask that you don't remove anything, not right now. We're still holding out hope of tracking down more of the relatives of the families that left their belongings here."

  Henry was surprised. There were only three other names on the sheet. The big discovery had made the local news, but few people had come forward to lay claim to what had been left behind.

  "No one's come to retrieve their belongings?"

  "That was a long time ago. A lot can happen in forty-plus years. People move on."

  Henry watched her choose her words. There was a reverent tone that belied her hard-driving business nature. "Sometimes people pass on as well. In all likelihood, many of the owners are deceased."

  "What about their relatives? Someone must have heard, wouldn't they have called

  ..."

  "I thought that too at first, but I think a lot of people just don't want to go back.

  Sometimes that's the best thing to do--to live in the present."

  Henry understood. Honestly, he did. He knew what it was like to leave something behind. To move on and live the future and not relive the past.

  But his sweet Ethel was gone now, and with it his responsibility to he
r.

  Henry thanked Ms. Pettison and wrote a single name on the sheet: "Okabe."

  The Basement

  (1986)

  Henry headed down a paint-chipped stairwell, through a thick wooden door that opened on creaking hinges. The door spilled into a large expanse of subbasement beneath the old hotel itself. The only illumination came from a handful of utility bulbs, hung like Christmas tree lights along the ceiling by large staples; a long tail of bright orange extension cord led the way.

  Stepping inside, Henry drew several deep breaths, feeling a chest-pressing wave of claustrophobia. The underground storeroom was packed. He could hardly comprehend the quantity of personal items stored here. A narrow path, shoulder-wide, wound through a forest of crates, suitcases, and steamer trunks stacked as high as the ceiling, many rows deep. Some yellow. Some blue. Large and small. A thin veneer of dust coated everything.

  The belongings had been here untouched for decades.

  On first impression, the room looked like a secondhand store. There was an old Luxus bicycle, the kind Henry wished he'd had as a child. There were large metal buckets, filled with rolls of paper and what appeared to be art prints. A 1941 Sears, Roebuck order form jutted out from a box beside an old issue of Physical Culture magazine. A finely carved marble chess set was piled up in a wooden rice bowl.

  Aside from the parasol that was brought up the first day, nothing looked even remotely familiar, but then he couldn't be sure if the bamboo umbrella had been Keiko's or not. He'd seen it only in an old black-and-white photograph of her as a child, what, forty years ago? Yet, as much as he tried to dismiss it as sheer coincidence, his heart told him otherwise. It was hers. Her family's possessions were here. Some of the things most precious to her were here. And he would find them. What was left of them, anyway.

  Henry eased down a small suitcase, popped the rusty clasps, and opened it, feeling like an intruder in someone's home. In the leather case was a shaving kit, an ancient bottle of Farnesiana cologne, and a rat's nest of old silk neckties. The name on the inside of the suitcase read "F. Arakawa." Whoever he was.

  The next suitcase, a large leather number with a clear Lucite handle, practically fell apart as Henry opened it. The fabric was damp and moldy from decades of humidity.

  Upon closer inspection, Henry saw it for what it was. The beaded pearls. Silk-covered buttons. Lifting it out of the suitcase, he could see the gauzy white fabric was someone's wedding dress. Inside were a matching pair of white pumps and a lace garter. In a small hatbox, tucked beneath the dress, was a dried wedding bouquet, brittle and delicate.

  There were no photos or other identification in the suitcase.

  Next Henry hauled down an old Wenatchee Valley apple crate overflowing with baby things. Bronzed shoes on a plaque, with the name "Yuki engraved on the base.

  Tucked beside the crate were a tiny pair of red galoshes. Mixed in were a few things of more than personal value-- silver rattles, a silver tea set, the American kind, plus a rolled up set of gold-plated flatware. Beneath the forks and spoons was a photo album. Henry sat on a leather stool and opened the dusty binder in his lap. There were photos of a Japanese family he didn't recognize--parents, small children, many taken in and around South Seattle, even photos of them swimming at Alki Beach. Everyone in the photos looked so serious. As Henry leafed through the album, he saw that there were blank spaces. Sometimes entire pages were empty. More than half the photos were gone.

  They'd been removed, leaving behind white squares where the hidden page had been preserved from yellowing in the wet Seattle air.

  Henry hesitated, then pressed his nose to the page, inhaling. He thought he had imagined the smell at first, then he inhaled again. He was right the first time--the pages smelled like smoke.

  Executive Orders

  (1942)

  Henry woke the next morning to the delightful smell of siu beng, baked sesame buns--a breakfast favorite of his father's and a real treat since sugar coupons were in short supply. At the table his father sat dressed in his finest suit, actually, his only suit.

  He'd had the dark gray number custom-made by a tailor who'd just moved here from Hong Kong.

  Henry sat and listened to his father read from the daily newspaper, citing each new arrest of Japanese locals. All of them now bound for federal prison. Henry didn't understand. They were taking schoolteachers and businessmen. Doctors and fishmongers.

  The arrests seemed random, and the charges were vague. His father sounded satisfied--small battles won in a larger conflict.

  Henry blew on his honey-brown sesame bun, right from the oven, cooling it as best he could. He watched his father, who seemed engrossed in an article, wondering about Keiko and the arrests at the Black Elks Club. His father turned to show the story to Henry--all Henry could tell was that it was written in Chinese, a message from the Bing Kung Benevolent Association; their chop, a stamp of their name, was evident at the bottom.

  "This

  is

  important news for us, Henry," his father explained in Cantonese.

  Henry finally took a bite and nodded, listening and chewing.

  "Do you know what an executive order is?"

  Henry had a vague idea, but, forbidden to answer in his father's native tongue, he simply shook his head no. But you're going to tell me, aren't you?

  "It's a very important declaration. Like when Sun Yat-sen proclaimed January first, 1912, as the first day of the first year of the Republic of China."

  Henry had heard his father speak of the Republic of China on many occasions, even though his father hadn't set foot on Chinese soil since he was a young man. It had been years, back when he was Henry's age and he'd been sent to finish his Chinese schooling in Canton.

  Father also spoke in reverent, worshipful tones of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary who brought about a government of the people. Henry fancied the name: Dr. Sun. It sounded like someone Superman would do battle with.

  His father had devoted most of his life to nationalist causes, all aimed at furthering the Three People's Principles proclaimed by the late Chinese president. So naturally, as Henry slowly grasped the point of his father's enthusiasm in these small local conflicts with Japanese Americans, it was mixed with a fair amount of confusion and contradiction. Father believed in a government of the people but was wary of who those people were.

  "President Roosevelt just signed Executive Order 9102--which creates the War Relocation Authority. This is in addition to Executive Order 9066--which gives the United States power to designate new military areas."

  Like a new base or army fort, Henry thought, looking at the clock to make sure he wouldn't be late to school.

  "Henry,

  the

  entire West Coast has been designated as a military area." Henry listened, not understanding what this meant. "Half of Washington, half of Oregon, and most of California are now under military supervision."

  "Why?" Henry asked, in English.

  His father must have understood the word, or maybe he just felt like Henry should know. "It says: 'I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders,' "--Henry's father paused, doing his best to read it correctly in Cantonese--"

  'to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War may impose in his discretion.' "

  Henry gulped down the last bite of his sesame bun; the executive order might have been in German for all he cared. The war was everywhere. He'd grown up with it.

  The presidential memorandum didn't seem out of the ordinary.

  "They can exclude anyone. They can exclude us. Or German immigrants." His father looked at Henry, setting the letter down. "Or the Japanese."

  That last part worried Henry--about Keiko, and her family. He look
ed out the window, barely noticing his mother. She'd come in with a pair of kitchen shears and cut the stem off the starfire lily he'd bought for her days ago, placing it back in its vase on their tiny kitchen table.

  "They can't take them all away. What would happen to the strawberry farms on Vashon Island and the sawmill on Bainbridge? What about the fishermen?" she said.

  Henry listened to their conversation in Cantonese as if it were coming from a distant radio station.

  "Hah? Plenty of Chinese workers--plenty of colored workers. They so short on labor even Boeing hiring Chinese now. Todd Shipyards is hiring and paying the same wage as Caucasian," his father said, smiling.

  Henry grabbed his book bag and headed for the door, wondering what might happen to Keiko if her father was arrested. He didn't even know what her father did to earn a living, but it didn't really matter now.

  "Henry, you forgetting your lunch?" his mother said.