Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

  Henry gripped the handle, steering as best he could. The wagon, cargo and all, careened down South King, rumbling on the cracked pavement. Henry could hear the shouts of the boys closing in behind him, giving chase. He briefly felt a hand on the back of his shirt, grasping at his collar. Henry leaned forward over the wagon handle, shifting his weight. Looking back for a moment, he saw his pursuers fall behind as he flew down the hill faster than a sled in wintertime. The squeaky wheels were now just a shimmering hum, as the revolutions of the wagon's axles made a spinning noise like a top.

  "Make way! Watch out! Move!" Henry yelled as bar patrons wandering the streets skipped out of the way. He nearly clipped a man in overalls, but the racket was so loud, and the scene before him so hysteric that most people jumped out of the way with plenty of time to spare. One woman dove into the open window of a parked car. Henry leaned back, slipping just beneath her wriggling stocking feet.

  He heard a clatter and a cry, and looked back to see Chaz and Carl skidding to a halt as Denny tumbled to the pavement face-first. They'd given up their pursuit, far back, up the hill.

  Henry turned around just in time to graze a parking meter. Jerking back on the handle, he lost what little control he had, ricocheting into the rear wheel of a car slowly rolling through the intersection of South King and Seventh Avenue. A police car. He'd slammed into the wheel and rear fender, a black slope of metal against the white chassis of the car.

  His shoes left black skid marks on the sidewalk as he slammed them down, trying to stop--wobbling and bouncing until his knees felt like two defective springs. Flying forward, Henry flipped over the handle, his side hitting, then bouncing off the whitewall of the tire. The wagon tipped, spilling its contents alongside and underneath the car in a fan of loose photos and torn pages.

  Lying there in pain, Henry heard the brakes of the police car release and the engine idle into park. The pavement was cold and hard. His bruised body ached. His legs throbbed and his feet felt hot and swollen.

  People on the street regained their senses, some yelling, others cheering in what Henry figured must have been drunken celebration. The bullies from school had disappeared. Henry rolled to his hands and knees and slowly began scooping up the photos by the armload, dumping them back into the wagon.

  He looked over and saw the star-shaped emblem on the car door. Out stepped a uniformed patrol officer. "Judas Priest! You're gonna get yourself killed pulling a stunt like that--at night no less. If you had a little more horsepower in that thing I might have run you over." To Henry he sounded more concerned than angry over the child-shaped projectile that had just torpedoed his cruiser.

  But I was dead if I stayed behind, Henry thought, while trying to discreetly shuffle the last of the pictures and photo albums back into the wagon. He looked at the car. As far as he could tell in the dimly lit night, there was no damage. He'd blocked most of the impact with his own body as he flipped over the front end of the wagon. He was sporting a second skin of bruises and a knot on his head, but he'd be okay.

  "I'm sorry, I was just trying to get home ..."

  The officer picked up a photo that had slid partway under his patrol car. He examined it with his flashlight, then showed it to Henry--a dogeared photo of a Japanese officer, posing beneath a white flag with a red sun, a sword at his side. "And where is home exactly? You know I could take you to jail for being out after curfew?"

  Henry patted his shirt, finding the button, holding it out for the officer to see. "I'm Chinese--a friend at school asked me ..." He couldn't think of what to say; the truth would have to do. "A friend asked me to hold them. A Japanese American family."

  Spies and traitors came in all shapes and sizes, Henry prayed, but not as sixth graders out too late with a wagonload of photographs.

  The officer pawed through the mess of photos and flipped through the albums. No secret scouting shots of airplane hangars. No detailed photos of shipyards. Just wedding photos. Holiday photos, though many were in traditional Japanese dress.

  Henry squinted, blinded by the light the officer directed at his button, then straight at Henry. He couldn't see the officer, just a black shape with a silver badge. "Where do

  you live?"

  Henry pointed in the direction of Chinatown. "South King." He was more worried about his father's reaction to a police officer bringing him home with a wagonload of Japanese photos than he was about going to jail. Jail would be a cakewalk by comparison.

  The officer looked more annoyed than offended. It was a busy night, surely he had better things to do than run in a twelve-year-old Chinese boy for reckless driving--of a Radio Flyer. "Go home, kid, and take this stuff with you. And don't let me catch you out after dark again! Got it?"

  Nodding vigorously, Henry shuffled off with the wagon in tow, his heart still pounding. He was only one block from home. He didn't look back.

  Within fifteen minutes, Henry was in his room, sliding the bottom drawers of his dresser back in place. The Okabes' photo albums were safely hidden. He'd put the photos back in place as best he could. He could sort them out later. Keiko's wagon found a home beneath the stairs in the alley behind Henry's apartment building.

  He climbed into bed and kicked off the covers. Rubbing his head, he could feel the goose egg that had appeared. Hot and still sweaty from the running and scrambling, Henry left his bedroom window up, feeling the cool air come off the water. He could smell the rain that would be coming soon and hear the horns and bells of the ferries along the waterfront signaling their last run for the night. And in the distance he could hear swing jazz being played somewhere, maybe even the Black Elks Club.

  Tea

  (1986)

  Henry looked up from his paper, smiling as he saw Marty and his fiancee, Samantha, waving in the window. They entered the tiny storefront cafe that sat at the base of the Panama Hotel, their entrance ringing with a string a Buddhist bells that jangled from the front door.

  "Since when did you start hanging out in Japanese teahouses?" Marty asked, holding out a black wicker chair for Samantha.

  Henry folded his paper nonchalantly. "I'm a regular."

  "Since when?" Marty asked, more than surprised.

  "Since

  last

  week."

  "You must be turning over a whole new tea leaf then. This is all news to me."

  Marty turned to Samantha. "Pops would never ever come here. In fact, he hated coming over to this side of town, pretty much from here to Kobe Park--outside that new theater, the Nippo Con--"

  "The Nippon Kan Theater," Henry corrected.

  "Right, that place. I used to accuse Pops of being a Nippo-phobe-- someone that was afraid of all things Japanese." As he said it, Marty waved his hands in mock fright.

  "Why?" Samantha asked, in a way that made it seem she thought Marty was joking or teasing.

  The waitress brought a fresh pot of tea, and Marty refilled his father's cup and poured a cup for Samantha. Henry in turn filled Marty's. It was a tradition Henry cherished--never filling your own cup, always filling that of someone else, who would return the favor.

  "Pop's pop, my grandfather, was a crazy traditionalist. He was like a Chinese Farrakhan. But he was famous around here. He raised money to fight the Japanese back home. You know, during the whole war in the Pacific, he was helping the war efforts in northern China. It was a big deal back then, huh, Pops?"

  "That. Is. An understatement," Henry said, slurping his tea, holding the small cup with both hands.

  "Growing up, Pops was never allowed in Japantown. It was verboten. If he came home smelling of wasabi, he'd be kicked out of the house or some craziness like that."

  Samantha looked intrigued. "Is that why you never came here, or to Japantown--because of your father?"

  Henry nodded. "It was a different time back then. Around 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress--no more Chinese were allowed to immigrate.

  This was when competition for jobs was fierce. Chinese laborers li
ke my father were used to working harder for less, so much so that when the local fisheries added canning machines, those machines were called 'iron Chinks.' But still, the local businesses needed cheap labor, so they went around the exclusion act--they allowed Japanese workers to come over. Not just workers but picture brides too. Japantown flourished, while Chinatown remained stagnant. My father resented that--and when Japan invaded China--"

  "But what about afterwards?" she asked. "After you were grown up-- after he passed away? Did you feel like all bets were off and you could run wild if you wanted to?

  Man, I would. Being told I can't have something would just drive me crazy, even if I didn't know what to do with it in the first place."

  Henry looked at his son--who was waiting for an answer to a question even he had never asked.

  "When I was a little boy, most of the International District was Japan-town, or Nihonmachi as they called it then. So it was a big place that my father forbade me to enter. It had a"--Henry searched for the word--"a mystique about it. And over the years, much of it changed. At the time it was illegal to sell property to nonwhites, except in certain areas. There were even districts for Italian immigrants, Jewish people, black people-- that's just the way it was. So after the Japanese were taken away, all these other people moved in. It was like wanting to go into a certain bar to have a drink, but by the time you turn twenty-one, the bar has turned into a flower shop. It just wasn't the same."

  "So you didn't want to go?" Marty asked. "After all those years of being told not to. When you finally had your chance, you still didn't want to wander over, just to see?"

  Henry poured more tea for Samantha, furrowing his brow. "Oh, I didn't say that."

  "But you said it changed--"

  "It did. But I still wanted to go."

  "Then why didn't you? Why now?" Samantha asked.

  Henry finally pushed his teacup away, drumming his fingers on the glass tabletop.

  He let out a heavy sigh, one that seemed to reveal a part of him like a curtain drawing back from a darkened stage that was slowly coming to life. "The reason I never went to Nihonmachi ... is because it was too painful to do so." Henry felt his eyes gloss with wetness, but not quite tears.

  There was a moment of silence. Another customer left the tearoom; the door chimes rang again, breaking the pregnant pause between them.

  "I don't get it. Why would it be painful if you never went there in the first place, if your father forbade it?" Samantha asked, before Marty could.

  Henry looked at the two of them. So young. So handsome together. But so much they didn't know.

  "Yes, my father forbade it." He sighed, staring longingly at the framed photos of Nihonmachi that hung on the walls. "He was vehemently against all things Japanese.

  Even before Pearl Harbor, the war in China had been going on for almost ten years. For his son to be frequenting that other part of town--Japantown--would have been bad form.

  Shameful to him ... But, oh, how I went--I went anyway. Despite him. I went deep into the heart of Nihonmachi. Right here, where we sit now, this was all Japantown. I went and saw many things. In many ways, the best and worst times of my life were spent on this very street."

  Henry could see the confusion in his son's eyes, more like shock really. Marty had grown up, all these years, assuming Henry was like his grandfather. A zealous man, passionate about the old ways and the Old Country. Someone who harbored enmity toward his neighbors, especially the Japanese ones. Clinging to leftover feelings from the war years. It never dawned on his son that Henry's steeped passion for tradition, his stodgy old-world habits, could be for any other reason.

  "Is this why you invited us here for tea?" Marty asked. The impatience in his voice seemed to soften. "To tell us about Japantown?"

  Henry nodded yes, then said, "No," correcting himself. "Actually, I'm glad Samantha asked, because it certainly makes the rest of this easier to explain."

  "The rest of what?" Marty asked. Henry recognized the look in his son's eyes. It reminded him of the halting, half-spoken conversations he'd had with his own father all those years ago.

  "I could use your help--in the basement." Henry stood up and took out his wallet.

  He put a ten-dollar bill on the table to cover the tea, then walked up the steps connecting the tearoom to the hotel lobby, which was still under renovation. "Are you coming?"

  "Coming where?" Marty asked. Samantha took his arm and pulled him along, his confusion mirrored by her excitement and anticipation.

  "I'll explain when we get there," Henry said with a subdued smile.

  Together, they went through the frosted Art Deco doors into the glowing lobby of the Panama Hotel. It smelled of dust and mold but felt new as Henry touched the brick where it had just been sandblasted and sealed, stripping away decades of chipped paint and dust. Swept and cleaned, and swept again. It was just as Henry remembered from when he was a boy, peering through the ornate window. The hotel was the same all over again, as if nothing had changed. Maybe he hadn't changed that much either.

  Henry, Marty, and Samantha stopped in at the makeshift office of the Panama Hotel and waved a hello to Ms. Pettison, who was on the phone--negotiating with a builder or a contractor. She had plans spread across her desk and was discussing details of the renovation. Something about not wanting to change. About wanting to restore the hotel to the way it was. Apparently buildings like this were either torn down or turned into high-priced condominiums.

  From the few conversations Henry had had with Ms. Pettison, he knew she was having nothing of it. She wanted to restore the Panama Hotel to its former glory.

  Retaining as much of the original architecture as possible. The marble sento baths. The simple rooms. Much the same way she had restored the teahouse.

  Henry signed in, whispering, "We'll be in the basement. I brought help this time

  ...," pointing to his son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law.

  She nodded and waved them on as she kept talking on the phone.

  Heading down the old stairwell, Marty was getting impatient again. "Um, where exactly are we going, Pops?"

  Henry kept telling him, "Wait and see, wait and see."

  Through the heavy, rust-hinged door, Henry led them into the basement storage room. He flipped the light switch and the makeshift string of utility lights crackled to life.

  "What is this place?" Samantha asked, running her hands along the dusty stacks of suitcases and old boxes.

  "This is a museum, I think. It just doesn't know it yet. Right now it's sort of a time capsule from before you were born," Henry said. "During the war, the Japanese community was evacuated, for their own safety supposedly. They were given only a few days' notice and were forced inland to internment camps. A senator at the time--I think he was from Idaho--called them 'concentration camps.' They weren't that bad, but it changed the lives of many. People had to leave everything behind, they could take only two suitcases each and one small seabag, like a duffel bag." Henry approximated the size with his hands. "So they stored their valuable belongings in places like this hotel, the basements of churches, or with friends. What was left in their homes was long gone by the time they returned--looters took everything. But most didn't return anyway."

  "And you saw all this, didn't you--when you were a boy?" Marty asked.

  "I lived it," Henry said. "My father was for the evacuation. He was excited about

  'E-day' as many called it. I didn't understand it completely, but I was caught in the middle of everything. I saw it all happen."

  "So that's why you never came back to Japantown---just too many bad memories?" Marty asked.

  "Something like that," Henry said. "In a way, there was nothing for me to come back to. It was all gone."

  "But I don't get it, why is this stuff still here?" Samantha asked.

  "This hotel was boarded up with the rest of Japantown. The owner himself was taken away. People lost everything. Japanese banks closed. Most people didn't come back. I
think the hotel changed owners a few times, but it stayed boarded up all these years--decades in fact. Ms. Pet-tison bought it and found all of this still here. Unclaimed.

  She's trying to find the owners. My guess is that there are things here belonging to thirty to forty families. She waits for contact, someone to come forward and claim, but very few have."

  "There's no one left alive?"

  "Forty years is a long time," Henry explained. "People have moved on. Or passed on, I'm afraid."

  They looked at the stacks of luggage in silence. Samantha touched the thick cloak of dust on a cracked leather steamer trunk.

  "Pops, this is fascinating, but why are you showing us this?" Marty still looked a little confused eyeing the rows of boxes piled to the ceiling. "Is this what you really brought us here for?"

  For Henry, it was as if he had stumbled into some unseen room in the house he

  had grown up in, revealing a part of his past Marty never knew existed. "Well, I asked you to come here because I could use your help looking for something."