I threw my hands up in the air. “Seeing that I’m your chauffeur, I have no choice. But hey, you can place your order now. Your number’s come up.”
In the car twenty minutes later, Hugh took my hand. “I could ask one of the others to run me by after the drinks, but then I’d probably be late for dinner with your family.”
“I said I’d take you to all your appointments.” I grumpily put the car in gear. “What’s the address?”
“Sixth Street, the four-hundred block. It’s an old hotel called the Blanchard.”
“Sixth Street is close to the Tenderloin.” I shot him a curious glance. “Who exactly is this woman?”
“You’ll see.”
I shook my head and kept my thoughts to myself. I knew the Tenderloin in passing—specifically, when I was trying to get from the city out of town on California 101. Now I was driving through it with the intention of stopping, something my parents wouldn’t approve of in the dusk. At least there were plenty of small businesses around. In addition to the adult video and film houses, I saw fleabag hotels, Cambodian and Vietnamese restaurants. And of course there were the SRO hotels—the single-room-occupancy places built in the nineteenth century to house Chinese workers. Over the years these buildings had fallen into slum conditions, and whole families were now living in rooms really intended for one person. With San Francisco rents as high as they were, though, this was all that many immigrants and working poor could afford.
I reached Sixth and made a right turn, passing a liquor store, pawnshop, and adult video emporium.
“It’s the white building just up on the left side,” Hugh said.
“Sorry, but it’s a no-parking zone. Let me go around the corner.” I passed the building, which was really more a patchwork of gray and white, given all the flaking paint, and made a right into the narrow lane I’d noticed.
I found a small spot and squeezed the behemoth SUV into a small spot between a beat-up Oldsmobile and a taxi.
“Great area,” I said, turning off the car. “Can I go in with you? I don’t want to stay here alone.”
“I’m glad you want to come in,” Hugh said. “I didn’t know what to expect, given your mood.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” I said sarcastically, before he kissed me.
“Mmm. That’s better,” Hugh said, and it was. My anger had slowly evaporated since I’d seen the client’s neighborhood. She was obviously needy, and I felt ashamed of being so grumpy.
Hugh lugged two shopping bags of take-out food, while I carried the gift-wrapped teakettle around the corner and into the vestibule of the building. I paused, looking for a place to buzz for entry upstairs, but Hugh said, “Don’t bother. It’s unlocked.”
We trudged over the old linoleum, passing the various levels. I curiously looked down each of the corridors, the walls scrawled with graffiti and punctuated with doors decorated with scuff marks and many locks. I imagined the long-dead Chinese workers crammed behind each doorway and shuddered.
On the third floor, from behind the first apartment door we passed, came the sound of people arguing in a language that sounded Asian and tonal: Thai? Vietnamese? I had no idea. Coming from the next apartment were the stereo-enhanced moans of a pornographic movie. At least, I hoped it was a movie. Then there was Rosa’s door. I could hear the faint strains of a Chinese opera song being played on the radio.
Hugh knocked loudly. No response. He knocked again, and again, and then, faintly, there was the sound of shuffling feet coming toward us. The door creaked open, though the chain remained in place. A section of a small face, as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, appeared. The eyes were bloodshot but sharp.
“What is it?” she asked.
“My name is Hugh Glendinning. Remember, I was here earlier today, Madam, the interview for the case—”
“I know who you are. I thought you got what you needed.”
“We did, thank you very much. We…ah…brought you a gift—nothing big, but something to mark the holiday and my…ah…appreciation of the time you gave us.” Hugh was talking rapidly, which made his accent more pronounced, more difficult to understand.
The woman snorted but her expression softened. “I don’t need gifts. All I really need is food, since those meals people do not come on holiday—”
“Well, food is what we brought.” I spoke up firmly, bringing myself into the conversation. “My name is Rei. I’m Hugh’s friend.”
The woman looked me up and down, nodded, then slid the chain off the door and opened it. I followed Hugh, taking a minute to murmur my thanks to this slight figure wearing a faded pink cotton housedress that stretched almost to her ankles. Her bare arms were little more than skin and bones; I imagined that a strong gust of wind coming through the drafty window by her television could topple her. She appeared to be somewhere between eighty and one hundred. I couldn’t tell, because I was used to well-kept, healthy Asian women who usually looked a decade or two younger than their age.
“I am lucky you came. The meals people will not come to help me tomorrow,” she said, looking at all the plastic containers Hugh was unloading onto her table. There wasn’t much else on it, just a Pacific Gas and Electric bill that said Rosa Munoz, which I guessed was her name. Munoz…It sounded Spanish. I could have sworn she was Asian, from the shape of her eyelids, and the straight silver and black hair pulled back into a knot. I wondered how she was going to pay it. I couldn’t recall if the government still allowed non-citizens to receive Medicare. So much had changed in the United States since I’d moved to Japan.
“It’s our pleasure,” Hugh said. “I remembered you said your stove was broken. Now you can at least have something good to eat for Christmas, and maybe even make yourself a cup of tea.”
“Ah, yes. I can have a tea party.”
From the way she raised her eyebrows, I could tell she was being sarcastic, but it seemed lost on Hugh.
“Do you have relatives in the area, Mrs. Munoz?” Hugh asked.
“Oh, no. Never married, never had children. Like I say to you this afternoon, I’m the only one of my family who got out of the P.I. I could never marry, after what happened to my body.”
The Philippines. Ah, I was beginning to put things together. A large number of Filipinos had helped the United States during World War II, and had been given the chance to emigrate afterward. Her name, Munoz, must trace back to the history of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines. What didn’t make sense to me was the connection between Hugh and Japanese companies.
“May I show you how to use this electric teakettle? You can fill it from the tap, but remember not to let water hit the electric plug.” Hugh took the kettle out of its box and handed it to Rosa. She held it awkwardly with her gnarled fingers, and now I was glad we’d gotten her the smaller model.
I glanced out the window, through which I couldn’t miss a movie house marquee whose letters were in purple and red neon—all except for the T in ADULT, which had burned out. I kept fixedly looking outside because I didn’t want Rosa to see the tears welling in my eyes. This was Christmas Eve. A broken-down old lady shouldn’t be alone in a miserable rented room. Now I knew why Hugh had brought me here, and I felt embarrassed by how irritated I’d been to run around for gifts. We should have brought her much more. At the very least we should have given her blankets to stave off the chill, and a new wastebasket to replace the overflowing plastic shopping bag.
I turned back at last to look at the two of them. She and Hugh were sitting on an old, sunken love seat together, talking in low voices. I drew closer and leaned against the wall, since there was no other seating.
“It was kind of you,” Rosa said, the stiffness and reserve that had initially been in her voice fading. “I begin to think you might really be able to help.”
“I’ll find that old friend of yours in Japan, I promise,” Hugh said softly. “That is, if he’s still alive.”
“Buried alive,” Rosa said. “Buried alive. They said it was because s
he was sick, and we could all catch it. But I knew it was because she saw.”
“She?” Hugh whipped a small device out of his pocket, and turned it on. A mini tape recorder. He was always at work. “I must have misunderstood, because I thought your friend was a man. The name was Espinosa, right?”
“No, no. Ramon Espinosa is different. This was Hiroko. The girls all had to use Japanese names. I don’t know her real name. Does she understand Tagalog?” Rosa suddenly turned to me.
“No,” I said hastily. “I’m not Filipina. Actually, my heritage is half Japanese.”
Rosa nodded. “Yes, that’s the way, isn’t it? You couldn’t help it. They just came and took what they wanted. Hurt everybody.”
I flushed, realizing that she believed my mother had been raped. Oh, God. She’d lost her grasp on time if she thought I’d been conceived during the war. I nervously looked at Hugh. I was starting to put things together. She’d been hurt. I wanted to know more.
“My father was just a baby during the war. He didn’t hurt anyone, but still, I’m very sorry for what his country did in the Philippines during the war. I know the military was rather…harsh.”
“Miss Munoz, you were saying that Hiroko died because she saw something,” Hugh said. “What was it she saw, some atrocity? An act of violence?”
“It was always violent. Didn’t I tell you that already?” Rosa clicked her tongue and looked at me. “No, I tried to explain before. I’m not sure of the English word, what was it in? Got…”
“What was in what?” Hugh asked.
“I’m not sure of the English—”
She broke off at the sound of glass shattering. I went to the window and looked out, but saw nothing. I said, “Probably someone dropped a beer bottle.”
“Or worse,” Hugh muttered, and snapped off the tape recorder. “I’m sorry, Miss Munoz, but we’d better go. I didn’t intend for this to be a formal interview, anyway. I’ll come back to continue with the translator on the twenty-seventh. And I’ll do my best to find a repairman to fix your stove.”
“I can’t afford that—”
“I’ll pay.”
She nodded, looking satisfied. “What’s his name? I don’t open the door to nobody I don’t know.”
Hugh looked understandably blank, so I jumped in. “It will be someone my mother uses. I can telephone you with the name.”
“Okay. That would be good, because my landlord doesn’t do anything about the stove. He says appliances are provided in as-is condition.”
“It’s my sincere wish that after we’ve won the class action, you won’t ever need to worry about that landlord again,” Hugh said. “You’ll be able to move somewhere quite comfortable.”
Rosa waved her hand tiredly. “I won’t hold my breath for that.”
“Don’t, then,” Hugh said. “But because of your willingness to speak out, it’s going to happen. Thank you. And merry Christmas.”
“Do you have a card, Hugh?” I asked. “Let me put down my name and my parents’ address and phone for her, just in case.”
After I’d scribbled my name on the card, I handed it to her.
She studied it carefully. “Shimura. I know this name.”
“Do you?” I paused. “There are a lot of Shimuras around. The ones here aren’t like the ones you might have known in the old days.”
She shook her head and repeated, “I know that name.”
Who was he? A soldier who hurt you?
But I was afraid to ask her those things, and it was time to go. My question would have to wait.
5
When we’d escaped the sad, beaten-down building, I turned to Hugh. “I’m sorry for being so grumpy earlier. I understand why you wanted me to meet her.”
Hugh squeezed my hand. “As you can guess, she had some hard times during the war. I heard it all for the first time a few hours ago, with a translator at my side. It was so bad, Rei, she still bears a grudge against the Japanese. But not you, Rei, I’m sure of it—”
“Tell me what happened to Rosa,” I said. We’d reached the car, and I quickly unclicked the remote-controlled lock so that we could get in. I wanted to get out of the neighborhood as fast as I could.
“Forget her name, Rei. I didn’t mean to let it out.”
“It’s not your fault. I read it on a bill on the table.”
“I see. Well, just keep it between the two of us, all right?” Hugh shot me a wary look. “In 1942, when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Rosa was thirteen. She was the daughter of a rice farmer living in a village in the southeastern section of the country. As the Japanese moved through her village, her entire family was killed. She was spared because she agreed to join a group of girls who worked at a brothel that served the Japanese forces.”
“Comfort women,” I said. The word was a Japanese invention—an innocuous title for the most horrible kind of work around. Comfort women were kidnapped from Korea, China, and the Philippines and forced to serve anyone in the Japanese military who paid for them. The brothel owners applied the fees the comfort women earned against their living expenses, and of course, the women never earned enough to win their freedom.
Hugh sighed heavily. “Rosa, being so young, had a particularly terrible experience. She submitted to fifteen men a day, everyone from regular privates to the medical officer supposedly in charge of her welfare. The women were customarily allowed a few days’ rest a month because of menstruation, but because Rosa hadn’t begun, she never had a break.”
“She told you that? Oh, my God.” We were stopped at a red light, so I took my hands off the wheel and put my face in my hands. I understood why Hugh wanted to file a class action on the behalf of all these brutally abused people—but I knew that the class action could easily fail. In the last few years, a group of comfort women had pressed the Japanese government to pay reparations, but the government refused to do it. Some concerned Japanese citizens had set about raising funds to give to the comfort women survivors, but the gesture hadn’t been appreciated by most of the women. They wanted an admission of government guilt. I reflected that if the Japanese government—the sponsors of the military—didn’t feel enough guilt to compensate the women, who else would? And would the comfort women accept money from anyone other than the government?
Hugh touched my shoulder. “The light changed.”
I put my foot hard on the gas, since this was one of the steep sections of California Street and I was desperately afraid of falling backward. When we were securely moving ahead, I told Hugh to continue.
“Finally, she escaped through the help of one of her officer-customers who felt sorry for her, paid off her supposed debt to the brothel, and found a spot for her at a Japanese company operating in another part of the Philippines. She wouldn’t have to provide sexual services, just hard labor. She said that even though she had less physical strength than the men, because of what she’d been through in the brothel she had learned to turn off mentally when bad things were happening. The male slaves had a harder time with it. A number of them went insane or committed suicide, or simply succumbed to death. She only knows one male survivor from her group who’s still living, the man we mentioned whom I hope to find in Tokyo. Apparently he was blinded. I assume he’s living in as desperate a situation as she is.”
“Okay, I understand there are a number of these people who were hurt during the war. But I know the Japanese government is standing behind a peace treaty it signed after the war that indemnifies it from actions. Who’s going to give Rosa all this money you’re hoping for?”
“Some of Japan’s largest companies. There’s a modern electronics company that sixty years ago used Rosa and her friends to work in the mines, and another company—it’s an overnight delivery service now—that used the shipping line it owned in those days to transport the slaves. The list goes on. And we’re optimistic the Japanese companies will be easy to hit, given that there is a precedent of successful class actions filed against German companies that us
ed Holocaust victims as labor.”
“But Germany’s different from Japan,” I pointed out. “Their government was also willing to pay reparations to the family of concentration camp victims. It’s a country that admits war guilt freely. Japan doesn’t.”
“Do you think the Germans would have admitted guilt if they hadn’t been pushed?” Hugh’s voice rose. “The point is that America never pushed Japan for justice; for political reasons, the U.S. government refuses to do it. But lawyers don’t have those boundaries. They can take up the fight for social justice—”
“And cash,” I said. “You aren’t doing this pro bono, are you? You hope to make pots of money for your firm in Washington, just as Charles Sharp does for his firm right here.”
“Are you saying this, Rei, because you don’t want me to do it?”
I was quiet, remembering Rosa’s face. “No. But you’ve got to admit there’s more than goodwill motivating you.”
“Certainly. Just as your father doesn’t only practice to help the underprivileged, but to own and furnish a house that rivals a minor estate. And you, my dear, charge your clients more than enough to keep a roof over your head and MAC lipstick—”
“Enough, enough, we’re here,” I said. I stopped the car in the driveway in front of the hotel, and a parking valet moved quickly to attention.
“Are you sure you want to come up and meet them?” Hugh said in a low voice as we got out.
I took his hand in mine. “Yes. I won’t put them on the spot, because that wouldn’t be fair to you. But count on my listening carefully and giving you my private opinion later on.”
As we passed a hotel doorman in a sharp navy uniform, I was flooded with nostalgia. How much the same, and how different, the hotel seemed now that I was no longer eighteen. I’d been frightened by the doorman’s once-over then, worrying I wouldn’t be allowed in to go up to the famous bar on the fourteenth floor. I’d made it there, but had been carded and left in disgrace.
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