Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

  As he and Sheldon grabbed a quick meal of coffee and toast, they looked around and made eye contact with the folks around them. Not everyone was afraid. Some even smiled back.

  Finding the camp was easy--in a way that made Henry feel more than a little saddened. As he and Sheldon stepped off the bus in Jerome, Henry couldn't help but notice an enormous sign that read "Minidoka Wartime Relocation Center--18 miles."

  There were dozens of people loading into trucks and cars, all bound for what had become the seventh largest city in Idaho.

  Sheldon adjusted his hat. "Relocation Center--they make it sound like it's the Chamber of Commerce helping people find a new home or something."

  "It's

  their new home now" was all Henry could muster.

  A woman with a nurse's cape rolled down the window of a blue sedan. "You two must be going to the camp. Need a ride?" she asked.

  Henry and Sheldon looked at each other. Was it that obvious? It seemed that everyone in the bus depot had business up north. They both nodded vigorously.

  "That truck behind me is taking visitors, if that's what you're planning."

  Henry pointed to a large flatbed hay truck, with makeshift benches and rickety boarded siding. "That truck?"

  "That's the one. Better hurry if you're planning on going, they won't wait much longer."

  Sheldon tipped his hat and grabbed his suitcase, nudging Henry. "Thank you, ma'am--we're much obliged."

  They walked to the back of the truck and climbed up, sitting next to a pair of nuns and a priest who spoke to one another in what appeared to be Latin, occasionally mixing in some conversational Japanese.

  "Looks like this might be easier than you thought," Sheldon said, sliding his suitcase between his feet. "Bigger than you thought too."

  Henry nodded, looking around. He was the only Asian person in sight, let alone in the truck. But he was Chinese; China was an ally of the United States--and he was a U.S.

  citizen to boot. That had to count for something, right?

  Looking at the horizon, Henry could see the camp from five miles away. A massive rock chimney rose above the dry, dusty fields, which eventually revealed the layout of a small city. Everything appeared to be still under construction. Even from a distance Henry could make out the skeletal frames of enormous rows of buildings.

  Sheldon saw it too. "That must be one thousand acres, easy," he said. Henry didn't know how much that was, but it was huge.

  "Can you believe that?" Sheldon asked. "It's like a city rising up out of the Snake River. Everything's so dry and barren this far north, now they just dump everyone here."

  Henry stared at the arid landscape. There were no trees or grass or flowers anywhere, and barely any shrubs. Just a living, breathing landscape of tar-paper barracks spotting the dry desert terrain. And people. Thousands of people--most of them seemed to be working on the buildings, or in the fields picking corn, potatoes, or sugar beets. Even small children and elderly people could be seen hunched over in the dusty furrows.

  Everyone was very much alive and in motion.

  The truck lumbered over a patchwork of potholes, brakes squealing as it rattled to a halt. As passengers unloaded, camp workers were pointed in one direction and visitors in another. Henry and Sheldon followed the small herd of people who crowded into a stone visitors' room. With the wind blowing, Henry could taste the dust in the air, and feel the grit on his skin. The land was dry and parched, but there was an indescribable smell. Sweetgrass, and the smell of rain coming. Being from Seattle, Henry knew that smell all too well. A storm was blowing in.

  Inside, they were instructed on what could and could not be brought to and from the camp. Things like cigarettes and alcohol were allowed in small quantities, but fairly benign things like nail files were forbidden. "I guess a huge pair of wire cutters is out of the question," Henry whispered to Sheldon, who just nodded and tipped his head.

  If the sight of a Chinese boy was unusual, it was hardly noticed in the hectic comings and goings of Camp Minidoka. Even Henry, who at first was certain he'd be swept up at bayonet point and taken into the heart of the camp, was surprised at how hardly anyone noticed him. How could they? There were thousands of prisoners to process. And more buses of prisoners were arriving by the hour. The camp was still breathing and lurching to life, finding its rhythm--a growing community behind barbed-wire fences.

  "Hope you took a bath before we left," Sheldon said, looking out the window. "

  'Cause those are sewer lines they're digging in out there."

  Henry sniffed at his sleeve, smelling sweaty and musty, like the bus ride.

  Sheldon wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "It'll be months before they get hot water or flushing toilets."

  Henry looked at the Japanese workers laboring in the sun. The sight made him thankful for being indoors as he and Sheldon waited in line. It was thirty minutes before they were allowed to register as visitors. Finally a file clerk checked camp records to see if the Okabe family had arrived.

  "They're Quakers," Sheldon commented to Henry, nodding in the direction of the office staff

  "Like the oatmeal guy?"

  "Something like that. They objected to the war and all that. Now they volunteer in the camps, teaching, filling in as nurses and stuff--least that's what I hear. Most of the white folks here is Quakers. Though this is Idaho, so some of 'em are Adventists probably. Same thing, I guess."

  Henry peeked at the white woman behind the desk. She looked like Betty Crocker--average, plain, and pleasant.

  The woman looked up from her papers, smiling. "Okabes? They're here, along with a dozen other families with that name, but I think I found who you're after."

  Sheldon patted Henry on the shoulder.

  "Just head on over to that visitors' room." She pointed. "And they'll help you get oriented. The camp is organized like a city, with streets and blocks. Ordinarily, visits are arranged by letter or by outgoing phone calls, which can occasionally be made from the main office. Otherwise a runner will be sent into that area of the camp and a notice will get posted outside the barracks assigned to that family."

  Henry tried to follow along, blinking his eyes and rubbing his forehead.

  "It normally takes at least a day," she said, "since most of the children are in temporary schoolrooms and the adults do work inside the camp."

  "What kind of work?" Henry wondered, remembering all the activity outside.

  "Just labor. Either harvesting sugar beets or doing construction. Plenty of office work for the women too." She sighed as she said it, returning to the pile of papers in front of her.

  Henry filled out a slip for Keiko, who he'd been told was assigned to Block 17--not too far from this side of Camp Minidoka. He wanted to surprise her, so he just put down "visitor" and left the name blank. A runner, an older Japanese man who ironically walked with a limp, took the paper and wandered off

  "This could take a while," Henry said.

  Sheldon nodded and watched the crowds of visitors shuffle in and out.

  Sitting on a hard bench between an older man with several boxes of hymnals and a young couple with baskets of pears, Henry looked at Sheldon, watching him crack his knuckles, wishing he'd brought along his saxophone. "Thanks for coming with me," he said.

  Sheldon patted Henry's knee. "Needed to be done. That's all. Your old man know you're all the way out here?"

  Henry solemnly shook his head no. "I told my mother I was leaving for a few days. She must know. I don't think she knows I'm here, but she knows enough. I'm not saying she likes it, but she let me go and didn't ask--that was the best she could do, I suppose, her way of helping. She'll be worried and all, but she'll be okay. I'll be okay. I just had to come. I may never see Keiko again, and I didn't want what I said or didn't say at Camp Harmony to be the last thing she ever heard from me."

  Sheldon stared off at the people coming and going. "There's hope for you yet, Henry. You wait and see. Might take a while, but there's always hopi
ng."

  That

  while lasted for six hours, as he and Sheldon waited and waited--sometimes inside, other times pacing outside the stone visitors' center. Thunderheads had rolled in, darkening the sky, even though there were still several hours before sunset.

  Finally, Henry patted his suitcase, looking at a sign that said visiting hours ended at 5:30. "It's almost time to go back. We left our message. She must not have seen it yet."

  But we'll come back tomorrow. She'll find it soon enough, he thought.

  Outside, thick and heavy raindrops dotted the parched ground. As it hit the tin roofs of the makeshift buildings and half-finished barracks, the rain created a slow warbling, drumming sound. People everywhere headed for shelter. Henry thought about the tar-paper roofs and unfinished buildings. He hoped they were vacant and the camp's residents occupied the rows sheltered by completed roofs.

  "There's a bus for visitors over here." Sheldon pointed, balancing his suitcase on his head with one hand to keep the rain off as it turned into a downpour. Thunder rumbled far away, but no lightning could be seen. It wasn't that dark yet.

  Henry tried to imagine what Keiko must have been doing right then. Heading home from school with the other Japanese kids. What a strange mix that must be--some spoke nothing but English, others spoke only Japanese. He thought about Keiko and her family settling into their one-room quarters, huddled around a pipe stove trying to stay warm, rain dripping into buckets through holes in the roof He thought about her playing their Oscar Holden record. Does she think about me? Does she think about me as much as I've thought about her. Could she? No, Henry thought about her so much he could see her on the streets of Seattle, even hear her voice. Simple and small. Sparkling, with perfect English, like now, speaking his name through the rolling thunder of the rainstorm.

  As if she was there. As if she'd never left. He was always amazed at how he liked hearing her call his name.

  Henry. From the day they met in the kitchen. Henry. To that horrible day when he watched helplessly as she and her family boarded the train for Camp Harmony. Henry.

  And finally, when she said good-bye in a sheltered, guarded way he'd never seen, as he said farewell and let her go, not wanting to complicate things any more than they already were, wanting to be a. good son.

  That voice had haunted him all these weeks.

  "Henry?"

  She was there. Standing in the rain, outside the stone visitors' center, which was closing for the day, behind the locked gate and rows of barbed wire. Wearing that yellow dress and a gray sweater hanging wet from her small shoulders. Then she was skipping over mud puddles, running to the fence that stood between them. "Henry!" The note from the messenger was wet and crumpled in her hand.

  Looking through watery eyes, wiping the rain from his face with his sleeve, Henry caught her arms through the fence as they leaned in, his hands slipping down to feel hers--incredibly warm, despite the cold rain. Pressing his forehead to hers between the gap in the rows of barbed wire, Henry was so close he could almost feel her eyelashes when she blinked; their proximity kept their faces somewhat dry as the rain fell along their cheeks and soaked their collars.

  "What are you doing here?" She blinked away the drops of rain that sprinkled her eyes, running down from a wet strand of hair.

  "I ... I turned thirteen." Henry didn't know what else to say.

  Keiko didn't say a word; she just reached through the wire and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  "I left. I came to see you. I'm old enough to make my own decisions, so I took a bus with Sheldon. I needed to tell you something."

  Henry looked down, and Keiko's brown eyes seemed to reflect something unseen in the gray September sky. Something glowed from inside.

  "I'm sorry ..."

  "For

  what?"

  "For not saying good-bye."

  "You did say good-bye ..."

  "Not the way I should have. I was so worried about my family. Worried about everything. I was confused. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what good-bye really was."

  "So you came all this way, all those miles, just to tell me good-bye?" Keiko asked.

  "No," Henry said, feeling fuzzy inside. The rain splashing him was cold, but he didn't feel it. His jacket caught and tore on the barbed wire as his hands gently framed her waist, his fingers feeling the soaked sweater. He was leaning in, his forehead pressed against the cold metal wire; if there was something sharp there, he didn't feel it. All he felt was Keiko's cheek, wet from the rain, as she leaned in too.

  "I came to do that," Henry said. It was his first kiss.

  Sheldon Thomas

  (1986)

  Henry stepped out of the rain and into the winding corridors of the Hearthstone Inn, a nursing home over in West Seattle, not too far from the Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal, which connected Seattle with Vashon Island. Henry had been coming more often now that Ethel had passed and he had a surplus of time on his hands.

  The Hearthstone Inn was one of the nicer nursing homes in West Seattle, nice to Henry anyway--not that he was an expert on nursing homes. He was more of an expert on the ones he didn't like. Those cold, gray places--like those state institutions that he'd fought so hard to keep Ethel out of. Those small-windowed, cinder-block buildings where people gathered to die, alone. The Hearthstone, by contrast, was more like a rustic hunting lodge or a resort than a rest home.

  The entrance featured a chandelier made from deer antlers. A nice touch, Henry thought as he found his way to the one wing he was somewhat familiar with. He didn't bother stopping at the nurses' station. Instead, he went directly to Room 42, knocking lightly just below the nameplate that read "Sheldon Thomas."

  There was no answer, but Henry peeked in anyway. Sheldon slept half-upright in his elevated hospital bed. His once-robust cheeks, which had ballooned when he played his sax, now simply draped the bones of his face. An IV ran to his wrist, where it was taped along the weathered, crumpled-paper-bag skin of his forearm. A clear plastic tube went around his ears and hung just below his nose, whistling oxygen into his lungs.

  A young nurse, someone new whom he didn't recognize, came up to Henry and patted him on the arm. "Are you a friend or a family member?" She whispered the question in his ear, trying not to disturb Sheldon.

  The question hung there like a beautiful chord, ringing in the air. Henry was Chinese, Sheldon obviously wasn't. They looked nothing alike. Nothing at all. "I'm distant family," Henry said.

  The answer seemed sufficient. "We were just about to wake him up to give him some meds," the nurse said. "So now's a good time to go on in for a visit. He'll probably be waking up soon anyway. If you need anything, I'll be right outside."

  Henry closed the door halfway. A Lava lamp with a bright purple bow on top was the only light on in the room, aside from the red lights on the various monitors hooked up to his old friend. The curtains were open, and light from the cloudy early afternoon twilight warmed up the room.

  A gold 45 record hung on the wall in a dusty frame, a single Sheldon's band had recorded in the late fifties. Alongside were photos of Sheldon and his family--children and grandchildren. Drawings in crayon and marker dotted the bathroom door and the wall just beneath where the television hung from the ceiling. A bedside table was covered with small piles of photos and sheet music.

  Henry sat in the well-worn chair next to the bed and looked at a recent birthday card. Sheldon had turned seventy-four last week.

  One of the many monitors began beeping, then went quiet again.

  Henry watched as Sheldon's mouth opened first in a silent yawn, then his eyes, blinking and adjusting to the light. He looked at Henry and smiled an old gold-toothed grin. "Well, well ... How long have you been hanging out?" he asked, stretching and rubbing his balding pate, flattening out the white hair he had left.

  "Just got here."

  "Is it Sunday already?" Sheldon asked, waking up, shifting in his hospital bed.

  In the months since
Ethel had died, Henry had made a habit of coming over on Sunday afternoons to watch the Seahawks game with Sheldon. A nurse would help Sheldon into a wheelchair, and they'd go down to the big rec room. The one with the giant rear-projection TV But in recent weeks, Sheldon hadn't had the energy. Now they just watched the game in the quiet of his room. Occasionally Henry would sneak in a bag of buffalo wings, clam chowder from Ivar's, or another of Sheldon's favorite foods that the nurses wouldn't normally allow. But not today.

  It wasn't Seahawk Sunday and he had brought something different to share with Sheldon. "I came early this week," Henry said. Loud enough so Sheldon could hear without his hearing aids in.

  "What, you think I ain't gonna make it to Sunday?" Sheldon laughed.