Bridge of Scarlet Leaves

by Kristina McMorris

  On a more serious note, despite my efforts I haven’t been able to locate my father. The sole explanation I’ve received is that they’re holding him because of his position at the bank. Since the Sumitomo headquarters are in Tokyo and funds are constantly transferred back and forth, the Justice Department is investigating him thoroughly. Of course, he’s not the only one. Japanese leaders and teachers are also being held. Even Christian ministers, if you can believe it.

  That’s what I’ve pieced together, anyhow, from what little the authorities will share. I’ve left several messages for Congressman Egan in hopes that he can speed up my father’s release. I guess my dad’s long-overdue bank promotion turned out to be a curse.

  As for the rest, the last few days have been a blur. Between maintaining things at home and helping our Japanese neighbors turn in “contraband” (as if eighty-year-old Mrs. Kubota was going to use her RCA radio to coordinate a massive assault), I’ve barely had time to sit. Since the banks froze all Japanese accounts, we had to let our housekeeper go. On the upside, it’s forced me and my sister to take up cooking. Most of the meals have even been edible. A husband who’s handy in the kitchen. Who would’ve guessed?

  Once things ease up, as I know they’re bound to, we’ll have a working phone again and I can call to hear your voice. Better still, you and I will have time to ourselves in person. In case I don’t see you when I deliver this, please know I carry you always in my heart.

  All my love,

  Lane

  Although he had brightened the letter with his usual touch of humor, Maddie could surmise the toll such hardships had to be taking on his family. To top it off, curfews were now imposed on the Japanese community, further reducing her opportunities to see Lane. Forces seemed intent on keeping them apart. Her brother most of all.

  TJ had actually demanded she file for divorce, or an annulment if possible, to reverse her “mistake.” A mistake! Like she’d simply mistuned her violin or forgotten an appointment.

  She stamped out the thought as she worked.

  At her sewing machine, she guided the pumping needle over the dress draped across her lap. The tangerine fabric, with its grid of yellow lines, could cause a traffic jam from the glare. Not to mention the maddening chore of shrinking the garb by five full sizes.

  “Sugar,” Bea drawled, returning from the back room, “would you watch the store for a bit?” She set a package wrapped in tan paper on the reception counter and retrieved her purse from a drawer.

  “I’d be happy to,” Maddie said, though Bea’s errand seemed curious. Drop-offs for regular customers happened on occasion, but typically after closing hours, not in the middle of the day. “Are you making a special delivery?” she asked.

  “It’s for Mrs. Duchovny.”

  Ah, yes ... her son’s shirt. The one with blue pinstripes that needed a button replaced. His mother had brought it here the day Lane had proposed at the beach. And to think, Maddie had gone there with the notion they were going to break up.

  As Bea shrugged into her pink knit sweater, Maddie said, “If you’d like, I could drop those off on my way home. Save you the trip.” The Duchovnys lived only a couple blocks from Maddie’s house. Besides, the complimentary service seemed the least she could do to show gratitude for her benefactress. “Or, I could go now if they need the clothes earlier.”

  Bea ran her fingers across the package, her coral lips pursed. Sunlight through the window reflected off the sides of her silvery bun. “I suppose there’s no real rush. Since hearing the news, I just feel awful that some of his belongings aren’t where they ought to be.” The sullenness in her tone struck Maddie’s ears like an off-key chord.

  “What do you mean? What news?”

  “Oh, sugar. I thought—well, I assumed you’d heard, what with your ties to the family and all.”

  Maddie clenched her wedding band, which hung on a necklace beneath her blouse. There it raised fewer questions, while providing strength when needed.

  “I’m afraid it’s not good, dear,” Bea explained. “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you, but ... when the Arizona sank”—she paused—“Donnie was on it.”

  A sharp exhale slipped out before Maddie could cover her mouth. Donnie Duchovny. He’d been a classmate of hers since grade school. A nice boy—one who blended. He used to weave his pencil over his knuckles during tests. She had forgotten that. Forgotten about his naval station. How was that possible, after listening to his mother’s boasting since the day he’d enlisted, no subtler than her matchmaking hints for Maddie?

  “That poor family,” Bea sighed. “Bless her heart, Mrs. Duchovny was so excited about their boy coming home for Christmas too. And those bookshelves his daddy made for him ...” Bea angled her face away to discreetly dab the corners of her eyes. It was the first time Maddie had seen her shed a tear. “Gracious, would you look at me. I’d better pull myself together. They certainly don’t need me adding to their woes.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  At Bea’s startle, Maddie considered what she had just volunteered. It wasn’t too late to retract the offer. Nonetheless, delivering the parcel herself would be the right thing to do. Not only had the Duchovnys promised financial help with Juilliard, soon after her father moved into the rest home, but Donnie’s shirt had remained at the shop because of Maddie.

  “Oh, sugar,” Bea said, “I didn’t mean to imply you needed to take on the job.”

  “You did nothing of the sort. I’d just like to do it, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Bea gave this some thought. Then she passed the wrapped garments over with reverent care.

  Maddie nodded and headed for the streetcar. Only upon settling into her seat did she register the incongruent weight of the package. It felt much too light to be carrying the memory of a person’s soul.

  Two sets of light knocks on the door failed to summon an answer. Maddie couldn’t bring herself to pound. Although tempted to leave the bundle beside the planter box, as she’d done in the past, she knew the situation called for a personal delivery. No question, her father would have demanded it, even done this himself if still capable. She could imagine him verbalizing as much, clear as the concertos stored in her head.

  While visiting him yesterday, updating him on all that had happened with Lane and TJ, she’d received the usual static response. On her way out, though, she swore she’d heard a whisper, an urging that she and her brother make up, that they tear down their barricade of silence.

  It was merely her conscience speaking.

  Maddie resorted to pressing the doorbell, and heard the ring inside. Not the frazzled buzz of her own house, but an elegant ding-dong to match the two-story, powder-blue Victorian home. Aside from the faint rattling of a car, the area had become devoid of sound. As though the death of a resident had triggered a mute switch in the neighborhood.

  She tried the bell once more. Still no answer. A service flag hung in the window. Donnie’s single blue star would soon be gold, a symbol of his sacrifice. Boys scarcely of age were enlisting in droves. Estimates claimed the war would be over in months. But how many gold stars would accumulate before then?

  Troubled by the notion, at the recollection of mourning, Maddie decided to come back later. She pivoted to leave—just as the door yawned open. There stood a portly woman in a bathrobe. The scarf enveloping her hair was knotted at the top behind a frizzy lock. No rouge on her cheeks, no color on her lips. Puffy bags lined her eyes.

  Maddie almost didn’t recognize the customer she’d known since childhood.

  “What do you want?” she ground out.

  “I’m sorry to bother you.” Maddie grappled for words. “It was rude of me not to call first.”

  Mrs. Duchovny watched her dully. A painful quiet passed back and forth.

  Maddie lifted the parcel. “I thought—that is, Beatrice suggested you might want these.” Mrs. Duchovny didn’t extend her hands, prompting Maddie to clarify. “Your jacket is done. The lovely green one.” She
took a breath. “And the shirt.”

  The woman made no reply at first. Then a soft, “Donnie’s.”

  Maddie raised the package higher as a means of affirmation.

  Hesitant at first, Mrs. Duchovny took the bundle and hugged it to her middle. The paper crackled from the pressure.

  Maddie staved off her emotions by rushing through their parting. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss. Please let me know if there’s anything we can do.” Not expecting a response, she dipped her head and started for the rock path that edged the manicured lawn.

  “Is it true?”

  The question rooted Maddie’s shoes. Over her shoulder, she asked, “Pardon?”

  “I said, Is it true?” More than irritation powered the huskiness of her tone. Alarm, perhaps. Desperation.

  Maddie stepped closer, racking her brain for context. Was Mrs. Duchovny asking if her son was actually dead, versus purely a rumor?

  Newspapers had detailed the attack in which nearly three thousand perished. There would be no body for confirmation, Maddie realized, if Donnie had drowned while trapped in the ship. The same went for those burned beyond recognition.

  How ever was she to answer?

  “Mrs. Duchovny ... ,” she began.

  “I want to know. Is it true what your neighbors are saying?” The woman’s intensity rose. “Tell me you didn’t marry a Jap. Tell me you didn’t devote yourself, before the eyes of God, to a man whose people murdered my only child.”

  Just like that, the air turned to glass; shards scraped Maddie’s throat with every breath. A reply had no chance of passing through, leaving silence to confirm the truth.

  And for this, Mrs. Duchovny’s face, usually warm and doughy, petrified with disgust. Her eyes glinted like steel, cool as the hidden ring dangling from Maddie’s neck.

  “Madeline Kern. You ought to be thankful your parents aren’t here to see this day. The shame would be unbearable.”

  When the door slammed, Maddie winced, letting loose a tear. It blazed down her cheek and vanished on the worsted mat.

  18

  TJ lost all awareness of his surroundings until someone gripped his arm. He spun around.

  “Easy there, slugger.” Jo laughed with a start.

  He relaxed his fist, dropped it to his side. “Hey, Jo.”

  “You know, for a second there, I was thinking you were ignoring me,” she teased. “I was in the window and you walked right by. I must’ve hollered your name half a dozen times.”

  TJ glanced past her. A block down, white letters appeared on the glass pane. Allister’s Hardware. He’d ridden the bus home from campus entrenched in thought, and evidently gotten off two stops early.

  “Been studying hard?” She motioned to the canvas satchel on his shoulder.

  With Maddie’s situation playing havoc with his concentration, the afternoon he’d just spent at the library had been a waste. “Finals are next week, so I gotta buckle down. See you around, though, all right?”

  He was about to walk away when she said, “I just clocked out for the day, and I’m dying for a Coke. You thirsty?”

  Definitely sounded better than hitting the books. But, he reminded himself, a scholarship hung in the balance. “Believe me, wish I could.”

  As two Navy men strolled past them, he half expected Jo’s eyes to follow—all the girls seemed to have gone ape over the uniforms—but her attention didn’t stray. It was only her expression that changed. More serious now.

  “You can talk to me, if you want. ’Bout what happened with Lane.” Her eyes penetrated him with a look of understanding, same as from the night on the baseball mound.

  “Maddie told you.”

  She shrugged.

  “Dandy,” he muttered.

  “So, how about it?” Jo produced a small wad of greenbacks from a pocket of her work uniform. “First one’s on me.”

  Tempted by her company, he checked his watch. His sister would be returning from work soon. Their mutual silence aside, he was still obligated to keep an eye on her.

  Jo jabbed him playfully in the ribs. “Come on, it’s fuel for the brain. A tall glass of Coke, fizz-fizz-fizz. Cherry syrup stirred in. Crispy fries, maybe? Mm-mm.”

  Given that Maddie made a point of cooking only for one these days, a basket of fries did sound appetizing. “Fine, you got me. But I can’t stay long.”

  “Deal.”

  “And just so we’re clear, I’m picking up the bill.” He couldn’t let a girl pay.

  “For a second, I was worried you weren’t gonna offer.”

  He laughed in spite of himself.

  “Ooh, just remembered. I gotta tell Gramps about a toolbox on special order. Don’t move a muscle.” She jogged off to the store, bound hair swinging, her energy infectious.

  TJ shook his head. Who’d have predicted that Jo Allister, his kid sister’s friend all these years, would turn out to be a pal of his too? It was nice, finding a gal who was so easy to chat with. Surprisingly, they had a good deal in common, from their family losses to sports to ...

  The thought stirred a memory from weeks ago—Jo yakking him up right before Lane showed at the house, the night they all went to the jazz club. He’d viewed her rambling about the World Series as an attempt to improve his mood. The real reason didn’t become clear until now: Lane had come over to see Maddie, not him. Jo had known, and she’d let him play the idiot.

  “Sorry about that,” Jo said, returning. “You ready?”

  TJ didn’t move. “Did you know about Lane and Maddie? That they’d planned to get hitched?”

  Jo flinched, a double take. “Well—no. I had no idea they were gonna run off and do that.”

  “You knew they were dating, though.”

  “Yeah,” she admitted, “I knew, but ... Maddie promised she was going to tell you. And I think she really was, except then—”

  “Save it.” He pierced her with a glare before striding away.

  “TJ. Wait.”

  He continued down the sidewalk and across the street, not acknowledging a car that hit the brakes for his passage. The driver honked.

  “Would you have reacted any different,” Jo called out, “if you’d known earlier?”

  Oh yeah he would have. He would have stopped it from ever happening in the first place.

  He just wished he could convince Maddie it wasn’t too late to salvage her future. The arguments he’d presented had gotten them nowhere. She’d refuted them all until there was nothing left to say.

  Maybe he’d been appealing to the wrong person. If he alone couldn’t open her eyes, he could think of the one person who could.

  19

  As Lane entered his house, the smell of smoke greeted him like an intruder. His internal alarm blasted in his ears, along with his father’s words.

  From now on, you are responsible for the family.

  “Emma,” he yelled, charging toward the kitchen. “Oksan!” Visions arose of a greased pan on fire, its orange and yellow flames climbing the walls. But once he got there, he discovered the kitchen in its normal state. Dishes were drying on the rack from breakfast. The Frigidaire buzzed long and low.

  Smoke, not suggestive of food, continued to pave an invisible trail. And the faintest hint of gasoline. Was someone trying to run them out, a person who hated them enough to burn down their house—with or without his family inside?

  “Emma!” he shouted, panic rising. He’d witnessed the crime in his dreams.

  “I’m right here.” Emma’s voice whipped him around.

  “Where’s the smoke coming from?”

  In a rust-red jumper, she toted a box half her size, a trove of personal keepsakes. Sadness rimmed her eyes. “It’s Oksan. She’s in back, burning all the Japanese papers and other stuff we still had left.”

  Lane mentally chided himself for assuming the worst. He’d forgotten that many other “Issei” were doing the same. The immigrants had been destroying their letters and diaries, no matter how mundane; photographs of t
heir youth spent in Japan, of their babies dressed in kimonos. A history erased as a show of loyalty.

  “Do I really have to give her my school pictures?” Emma asked tightly. “Can’t I at least save the notes from my friends?”

  He patted her braids, uneven and puckering from weaving them herself. “You’re not giving up a thing. Go put these back in your room, and let me talk to Mother.”

  “But ... she said I had to.”

  “She won’t mind, I promise. You go up and play now. Throw a tea party with Sarah Mae.”

  Emma glanced at her rescued box, and a sparkle returned to her Betty Boop eyes. “Will you come too?”

  “You get everything ready, and I’ll join you soon.”

  When she shuffled toward the stairs, Lane headed for the door off the laundry room to stop his mother from this foolishness. Through the screen door he could see her. On the concrete patio, she sat primly on a wrought-iron chair. Black plumes swayed from a metal pail at her slippered feet. She lifted an envelope from the shoebox resting on her lap. Yet instead of adding it to the smoldering pile, she held the post to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. The emotion crumpling her face glued Lane’s grip to the door handle. He leaned back onto his heels, causing the screen door to squeak.

  Her eyelids flew open. Again, she was a statue. “Otsan no ko-tode nanika kta?” Her tone remained flat, even while inquiring about news of her husband’s arrest.

  In response, Lane followed a longtime urge to enforce a change. “We shouldn’t speak Japanese anymore. We’re Americans. We should act like it.”

  “Demo, watakushi no eigo—”

  “Your English is fine. I’ve heard you use it at stores when you have to.”

  Her fingers tightened on the shoebox. Her deceptively dainty jaw lifted. “Wakatta wa.” She agreed in her native language, no doubt to make a point. Then she snatched a photo from the box and flung it into the pail.