The Pearl Diver

by Sujata Massey

  “I had no idea! Is it because you want to do something at Marshall’s new place?” Marshall had bought the building next to Bento, and was knocking down the wall between them to make one large restaurant. My heart had sunk when I’d learned he was scrapping the Japanese menu for Low Country cooking—a combination of North Carolina barbecue, grits, greens, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, and the like. But I couldn’t be too angry. Marshall was grateful I’d thrown the grenade outside the restaurant instead of allowing his place to blow to pieces—so grateful that he’d finally paid me in full. I was flush again, so flush that I’d even bought myself a ticket to the Harp Snowden fund-raiser taking place in two weeks at Harp Snowden’s own Kalorama residence. It would be a true kaiseki ryoori menu catered by Jiro with Andrea at his side, helping.

  “I don’t want to work for Marshall much longer,” Andrea said, reminding me of what we’d been talking about. “Besides, I’ve got a really cool new option.”

  “Oh?”

  “Did you hear where Jiro’s going?”

  “Sure. To Japan.” Jiro had told Hugh and me over mojitos at El Rincon that he needed to face his demons back in the land of his birth. He was going to part ways with Marshall to create his own American seafood restaurant on a beach. I had already told Norie about it—and also about Jiro’s true Japanese identity, and how he’d saved my life.

  Andrea continued, “Because I want to see my Japanese relatives, I figured that maybe I could work while I was over there to pay for my trip. Jiro will need Japanese servers and hosts, but he could use a real American cook. And even if the thing with my Japanese aunt doesn’t work out, I can just kick back with Jiro and drink saketinis.”

  “That sounds like fun,” I said wistfully. “I wish I could go with you.”

  “I could use the help,” Andrea said, taking a sip of iced tea. “This is really good tea. Presugared tea, the way restaurants are usually afraid to do it.”

  “Since when have you had a sweet tooth?” I demanded. “You used to look at me stirring sugar as if I was killing myself.”

  “I’m getting to like sugar more and more. I might even become a pastry chef. There are a lot of brilliant women in pastry.”

  After we’d paid our bill, we asked if there was an old-timer in the area who knew marine divers. We heard the whole spiel again about the scarcity of oysters, to which we nodded sympathetically. But in the end, we were sent over to the packing plant, where a red-faced man in overalls with a shock of white hair listened to our query.

  Andrea had asked me to do the talking because she thought she’d get too nervous, blow the thing. So, trying to avoid having to tell the whole story, I asked if he remembered hearing anything about a Japanese woman who’d lived nearby in the 1970s. I thought she might have dived, but I wasn’t sure. She probably had moved away and we were family, trying to get in touch.

  He looked doubtfully from half-black Andrea to half-white me. I thought about telling him that race was about as impossible to define as the last remaining rock where the surviving oysters were hiding. I’d thought Mike Neblett was white, when he’d been black. Garcia had seemed African-American, but he’d turned out to be Puerto Rican. Norie had thought Jiro wasn’t Japanese.

  “There aren’t many women oyster divers,” he said. “There was one a long time ago, but she retired. And folks said that she was Korean.”

  That made sense, because Korean women were known for marine diving. There was a chance, maybe, that the two women, alone and Asian on a tiny American island, had bonded.

  “What was her name?” I asked.

  “I can’t recall, but like I said, she retired. The oysters have got so scarce, there’s not much business. The guys who’d been here before, well, they kept at it longer. She went in to work on land, I think. First grading oysters in the packing plant, and then she had enough money to take some college classes.”

  “Who knew her?” I was not going to give up on this woman.

  He shrugged. “Polly Westerbrook—she’s my cousin’s wife—was friends with her. She said something about having dinner with her in Centerville a few months back. So this gal’s still around, somewhere.”

  Centerville was one of the bigger towns on the Eastern Shore; it would take about a half hour to get there on Route 50. But I wanted to talk to Polly Westerbrook first, so we wound our way back to the place where she was said to work: the pet store we’d stopped at on our way into town. Polly was in fact the dog groomer we’d talked to earlier. At the moment, she was shearing a bored-looking poodle.

  She looked up as we came through the door. “Well, hello again. How was lunch?”

  “Excellent,” I said. “I had the lobster. It’s amazing that they swim this far south.”

  “A lot swim in places you think they don’t belong.”

  I exchanged glances with Andrea, but the next thing that she said put me at ease.

  “It’s a good thing. Keeps us going, keeps us growing.”

  “I hear there’s a chance of bringing in a new, nonnative oyster species so they could spread and repopulate,” I said.

  “That’s right. The Asian oyster. A lot of people are afraid of it. My husband’s cousin Bobby, who works over at the crab-packing plant, says it’s been bred over on the Virginia side of the bay for a while without causing problems. Too bad the brilliant minds running our state won’t let us do it. What’s the bay gotta turn into, a swamp or something, before they’re willing to act?” She raised her eyebrows, making the creases in her forehead deeper.

  “We talked to Bobby, actually.” I was happy for the easy opening. “He mentioned a friend of yours, a Korean woman who used to dive around here. We’d like to meet her.”

  “Why’s that?” She looked at us expectantly.

  Andrea and I exchanged glances. She shook her head.

  “I’d rather not say. I mean, I’ll tell her, of course, because I’m hoping that she will be able to lead us to the person we are actually hoping to talk with. It might not pan out, but we’ve come so far, I thought it was worth a try.”

  “Well, it don’t matter. I can’t think of anyone who fits the description. Round these parts men do the diving, not women.”

  “But your cousin said—” Andrea protested.

  “Bobby’s never been able to remember anything right.”

  “But she was the only woman diver. He said that you used to have a beer with her, now and then, and you saw her recently in Centerville.”

  “He was confused.” She’d stopped paying much attention to the dog, and the shearing continued over one of its ears, catching an ear corner on the edge. The dog yelped. She dropped the power razor.

  She knew something. There was a buzzing in my ears that had nothing to do with the tool that was lying on the floor.

  “It’s my mother we’re trying to find,” Andrea said in a low voice. “This woman you know, we think, might have befriended my mom, back when she was here in the seventies, before she disappeared.”

  “It’s so long ago. I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to help you. Off the table, Daisy!” She grabbed the pooch around its middle and set it on the floor.

  “You’re still protecting her, aren’t you?” I said. It had to be. Polly’s reaction to throw us off and protect her friend could only mean that the so-called Korean diver might not be the source we needed to lead us to Sadako. She might be Sadako herself.

  “What do you mean? Daisy has her owner coming back in a half hour. The dog’ll be fine.” Polly sounded testy.

  “No, I mean you’re trying to protect your friend by not telling outsiders about her,” I said. “You’ve been her ally all these years.”

  “Girls, I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I’ve got to put this dog out in our short-term kennel. Good luck on the rest of your trip!”

  “The men my mother was afraid of are finally in prison,” Andrea said. “She—Rei, I mean—she was almost killed by them a few weeks ago. But they can’t hurt anyone again.”
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br />   Polly looked unconvinced.

  I watched Andrea shut her eyes for a moment, then open them. She seemed to be gathering her courage for something. At last her voice came out, a little shaky. “Please help me. My mother’s name was Sadako. She was married to a guy who’d been in Vietnam. I was born in Virginia in 1974. She liked to call me Akiko, but my American name is Andrea.”

  Polly swayed slightly, and put her hands on the dog-grooming table to steady herself.

  “You know what she’s talking about,” I said softly.

  Polly looked at me with a fierce expression. “You swear they’re in prison?”

  “My copy of the Washington Post containing the news story is back at my apartment,” I said. “If you like, I can drive back to D.C. and fax it to you.”

  “No,” Andrea said sharply. “I’m not leaving the shore until I’ve seen my mother. She walked away from me, but I still—” Andrea stopped speaking and buried her face in her hands.

  Polly looked at me. Her careworn face suddenly looked even older. “There’s not supposed to be a daughter anymore,” she said. “Not one alive.”

  “Just as there’s not supposed to be a mother alive, either,” I said.

  Polly sat down. “I—I better make a phone call.”

  I sensed that Polly wasn’t going to send us unless it was clear that we were wanted. And there was a chance that this woman really was a stranger. All my instincts were screaming that Polly’s friend was Andrea’s mother, but it might not be the case. I’d been wrong about so much over the last few months.

  Andrea was still weeping. I led her to a bench near the doorway and made her sit down. Daisy wandered over and nosed against her knees. This made Andrea cry even harder.

  Polly disappeared with a cordless telephone into a back room. I wondered how she’d put the situation to her friend. Two strange city girls had wandered in, looking for her. They’d thrown around some Japanese names. Was that enough for her to agree to see us?

  Polly came out again without the phone. Instead of saying anything, she went to Andrea and put her arms around her.

  “She doesn’t want to see me, does she? I knew it was a bad idea,” Andrea said, her mouth wobbling.

  “No, hon. She wants to see you right away. I’m going to give you directions to the marine center. She works in the lab on the first floor.”

  “There are Marines here on the Eastern Shore?” I asked.

  “It’s a marine biology research center,” Polly clarified. “Pearl is working in the lab on an oyster cultivation project that’s been going on for five years now. She got the job a while ago, when she stopped diving.”

  “Pearl,” I said. “Her name is now Pearl?”

  “Yes. It’s not her given name, she said, but the one she chose to use ever since she moved out here. And it suits her more each year. You’ll see.”

  “I feel sick,” Andrea said as we started driving again, this time toward Centerville. “Sick as a dog. I wish—if I had known—I wouldn’t be dressed like this, I’d be in something more conservative. And look at my hair.” She touched her light gold curls. “She’ll never believe I’m her daughter. I should have brought my birth certificate, some kind of proof.”

  I shook my head. “She’s your mother. She’ll recognize you.”

  39

  The marine center was a modest two-story cinder-block building that I guessed must once have been a grade school, because of all the windows and the playground equipment in back. In front, there was a neatly clipped lawn decorated with a sculpture made from oyster cans. A boat, I realized belatedly. An oyster boat, made of the cans used to catch oysters.

  We pulled into a large parking lot that was underoccupied by only a dozen cars, all of which bore “Treasure the Chesapeake” Maryland license plates. I was beginning to feel that some Americans were a lot like the Japanese, understanding that the value of nature was greater than all of us put together.

  “I’m perfectly willing to wait in the car,” I said to Andrea.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ll lose my nerve if you aren’t with me. Besides, you might need to translate something. Remember how she said in the letters that she couldn’t speak English well?”

  “She’s been here for twenty-eight years, though,” I said. “She’s made friends and gotten a job. So don’t worry about the English. I’ll come along though, if you want the moral support.”

  The building had a wide central hallway with doors along both sides. I looked at the room directory, which was posted on a big board. There were offices for the study of sea grass, others for crabs, others examining salinity. The oyster recovery group worked at the rear of the first floor. I practically had to pull Andrea along with me. She was scared. Well, I’d be, too, if I were to meet my mother after twenty-eight years.

  “I wish I wasn’t meeting her in front of a crowd,” Andrea said in a low voice.

  “She might be alone. There were only about twelve cars in the lot. Divide that by the number of offices.”

  “You never know—” Andrea broke off. We were standing in front of the oyster-recovery-program door.

  “Shall I knock?” I asked, because she hadn’t moved.

  “Yeah. You go first, because if she’s there I—I don’t know what I’ll say.” Andrea’s face had tightened into the chilly expression I’d always seen on her in the old days, the days before I realized that was just the way she looked when she was nervous.

  “Relax,” I told her as I knocked. “Ten deep breaths. And you might want to smile.”

  “This is not a beauty pageant,” she muttered.

  The door opened, suddenly, and I found myself facing a tall, American boy—a man, I revised, a young man with glasses and blue jeans and an intense air. “Come on in. Are you the ones here to see Pearl?” he said. The room behind him was filled with marine equipment, books, and banks of computers and telephones.

  “Yes,” I said, squinting beyond him to see where she was.

  “I work on the project with her. She wanted me to walk you out to where she’s tending the oyster beds.” He indicated the room’s windows, which had a thrilling view of the blue bay.

  “You mean—out to sea?” Andrea asked.

  “Naw.” He smiled. “We have the lab set up outdoors, along the pier. You’ll see.” We went back out in the hall, and then around to the back of the building. All along a wooden dock were round fiberglass containers that looked like small, aboveground swimming pools. A woman was standing with her back to us, leaning over one of the containers and examining something in a net. She was tall, and wore blue jeans and a purple-striped jersey. I’d been expecting black hair like my aunt’s, but hers was silver.

  “Is that Pearl?” Andrea asked him. I could hear the doubt in her voice.

  “Yep,” he said. “I’ll leave you here, then. Take care.”

  When he was gone, Andrea gripped my hand. “I don’t want to go up to her. I can’t stand the disappointment.”

  “You mean, if it’s not her?” I said, just as the woman turned. She looked at us without smiling. Her face was not the classic middle-aged Japanese woman’s face at all. It was creased deeply with sun damage, and she wore a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. But the eyes behind the glasses—they were Asian eyes. And they were looking at Andrea with intensity. Clearly she’d guessed which young woman was her daughter.

  I kept hold of Andrea’s hand and started walking forward. Now we were only three feet from the woman.

  “Hello,” Andrea said.

  “Are you my Akiko?” She spoke softly, with a strong Japanese accent. There was no mistaking it, nor was there in the strong way she held her shoulders. This was Sadako.

  Andrea nodded. “Andrea is the name on my birth certificate, but—yes. I learned a little while ago that Akiko was my baby name.”

  “How did you learn that?” Pearl asked. She was still on guard, it was clear.

  “Letters. Your letters to Atsuko. Rei and her aunt translated
them from Japanese for me.”

  Sadako looked at me as if she was startled to see anyone else standing next to Andrea. I bent my head, and in Japanese, introduced myself and said that we’d gotten the letters, which had been returned from her sister’s home in Japan to Robert Norton.

  “Yes, the early letters were returned. I learned that after some years,” she said.

  “And you stopped writing to your sister, Atsuko,” I said. “My own aunt just met your sister a few weeks ago. Atsuko has thought, all these years, you were dead.”

  “Yes, I imagine she did.” She let out her breath slowly. “Rei, I am very grateful for what you did. And yes, I am concerned about my sister. But how you found Akiko remains the most important thing.”

  “We found each other,” I replied in English, smiling at Andrea.

  “But I never found you. You were not there,” Sadako said, turning to address Andrea directly. “I went back to get you, two months after I’d found my new life here. I went back in the night, slipping in with my old key. Robert was sleeping in the apartment, but you were not there, nor were any of your things. Because you were missing, I was sure that something terrible had happened to you. I went into such a—depression—after that. I stopped writing to my sister. I separated completely from my old life in Japan.”

  “I was in foster care,” Andrea said. “You could have found that out if you’d asked my father.”

  “I should have.” She bowed her head. “But I was frightened. I thought you were dead, that it was my punishment for what I had done.”

  “The river,” I said. “Someone put your clothes by the river.”

  “I did that,” she said in a low voice. “When I ran away, I wanted to make it look as if I’d died.”

  “But then, if you came back and got me, people would have thought I was kidnapped,” Andrea said.

  “But not by me, since I was supposed to be dead.” Sadako sighed. “The plan sounds so crazy now. I was not the same person then. I thought I couldn’t trust Robert to keep secret where I’d gone.”

  “What about Neblett and Garcia—the men who were in Vietnam?” I asked.