Under the Silk Hibiscus

by Alice J. Wisler

  The trouble with family photos is, that if you look closely, you can see yourself in every face. All of us children resembled Mama. She had passed her smile on to Ken, Tom, Emi, and even me. And not only her smile, but her dimple.

  Quickly, I stood, hoping to leave nostalgia behind me on the couch. I dressed and set out, wanting to appear businesslike. I was going to get a place for our general store. I was going to succeed. I was Nathan Mori, and once upon a time, a nobleman had felt our family worthy enough to bequeath a gold pocket watch to.

  I laughed. Who used the word bequeath anymore?

  I found Jonathan Jones seated in the barbershop. His face was lathered in white foam, a towel under his chin. As the barber gave him a shave, Mr. Jones looked at me and said, “You still want the shop on Empire Street for your market?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “I can’t afford sixty dollars a month.”

  “I know. You can pay me thirty-seven dollars. I need thirty-seven dollars by Thursday, and it is yours.”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  “That would be affirmative.”

  I thanked him, and rushed out of the store. All the way home, I uttered, “Thank you, God, thank you, God.” I couldn’t wait for my aunt to get home and share the news with her.

  Hours later, when she arrived home, she confessed, “It took me a long time to get here. First, I had to make sure make your Papa and Emi were all right, so I stop by to see them at the Shimizu house.”

  “Were they okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Emi was playing with their new puppy. Your papa was sitting inside drinking tea and eating cake.”

  What kind of cake?” I went over to my aunt and rubbed a smudge of dark brown off her cheek. “What kind?”

  Innocently she muttered, “Maybe chocolate.” Stepping into the kitchen, she confessed, “Okay, yes, I had a piece. I had to or Mrs. Shimizu would have been mad at me.”

  “Wasn’t Mr. Shimizu the one who got carted off to Tule Lake by the FBI right before they came for Papa?”

  “Yes, the one they accused of sending messages to the Japanese army. They said he was General Tojo’s cousin. That is why your papa likes to go to their house. He and Mr. Shimizu talk and remember.” She sat on the sofa and sighed. “Mrs. Shimizu says that some days they just play chess and don’t talk at all.”

  “What happened to them at Lake Tule?” I half expected my aunt to tell me that they had been tortured during their years there, but she only shook her head and asked me to put the kettle on for tea.

  “Guess what?” I made sure I had her full attention before I continued. “Mr. Jones said we can have the Empire Street shop.”

  Clearly, she was interested. She sat upright and asked, “For how much? How much does he agree to?”

  “For thirty-seven!”

  “When does he need it by?”

  “Thursday.”

  “I don’t get paid till Friday. But I have money. I saved some under my mattress for rainy day.”

  When we told the others at dinner, everyone talked at once. I loved the feeling of excitement in the air.

  “What shall we call our store?” asked Tom.

  “Where is it? Can I walk there?” asked Emi.

  “What would be a good name?” Tom asked, as he shoved a forkful of green beans into his mouth.

  After dinner, Papa patted my shoulder, smiled, and went outside to smoke.

  My aunt was putting on lipstick. “I’ll think of name as I go to church. Mrs. Shimizu is picking me up in her car to take me there.”

  “Did you count your money? How much do we have?”

  “Nathan, don’t worry so much. We will have enough by Thursday. You will see. Now, about that name.”

  I wished that everyone wasn’t so consumed with a name for the shop. What did a name matter if we couldn’t afford to rent it?

  On her way out the door, she smiled, adjusted her hat that had a single feather in it, and said, “I will take all this good news to the table.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked

  “Tonight at church. We have a group.”

  “What kind of group?”

  “We eat, we talk, we laugh.”

  “What kind of group?” Certainly she must be missing some part of it. Weren’t church groups supposed to study the Bible or pray?

  “We bring something to the table.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tonight I tell story about how you got to lease a place for shop. Last week I talk about Emi playing the piano.”

  “So it’s a sharing group.”

  “You bring a story or a food or even a pebble.”

  “A pebble?” Who would bring a pebble to a group?

  “If it has meaning for you, you share it. If it is beauty for you, or an answer to a prayer, then you take it to the table. No matter how poor or bad off, you are always welcome to come and you always have something to bring. What you bring helps you and helps others.”

  Curiosity got the best of me and so the next Sunday I asked Pastor Campbell what this group was about.

  “It was started by a few women,” he said. “After the war, many have been deprived. Times have been hard. But the idea behind the group is that we all have God, so we’re all rich. We are rich in our stories, our very presence is rich. Even the least well-off financially has the ability to bring something of use. We are all of value to God and to each other. The idea is to bring an object or something, no matter how small. It’s not the value of what you bring that counts; it’s about knowing that you are valuable.”

  “What’s the real name of the group?” I asked, certain that my aunt had just given it her own name.

  “To the Table.”

  I smiled. I wasn’t going to argue with him that no one would name a group To the Table.

  “You should come some night,” he said. “We eat. We share. We laugh a lot, too. Your aunt is a blessing to each of us.”

  But my time these days was taken with getting the shop ready for business. We scraped together thirty-seven dollars and put it in an envelope for Mr. Jones. My aunt told me to make sure that I read carefully whatever it was I needed to sign to make the lease of the shop on Empire Street legal.

  I obtained the license I needed to run a store. Inside the shop, I used an old broom to sweep out the cobwebs and the dust off the wooden floor. There were some old tables Mr. Jones said I could use to display my merchandise. Actually, I had little merchandise that was mine; most of it was from local folks who dropped it off for me to sell. I made sure that they understood they would get a commission. Eventually, I wanted to buy their wares when they dropped them off, but at this point in time, I had no cash to pay them.

  By the end of the second day, when the windows sparkled, and the floor looked glossy, I realized that I needed more items in order to have a thriving shop. The jars of pickled beets, cucumber relish, and spiced pears looked lonely on one table.

  Where were all the people who had said they wanted a store where their items could be sold? I told Aunt Kazuko she needed to do a better job about getting the word out.

  Emi asked me to teach her a new song on the piano, and as I did, a thought came to me. How much could I get for this piano?

  The next morning, I entered the pawn shop. Mr. Rizzardi was occupied with two customers so, while he talked with them, I looked over dishes, beds, and jewelry. A number of items I’d seen when I was last here were gone. After the customers left, I continued to browse. I pretended to be engrossed in a wall clock, but I was really trying to get my nerve up to ask about selling our piano. I planned to describe it to Mr. Rizzardi, tell him that it needed tuning but that shouldn’t cost much, and try to get him interested. He could buy it and pay someone to move it from our house. And we’d have cash.

  Mr. Rizzardi had the radio on and was humming along to a song. He stopped when the song ended and the DJ said, “And that was Lucy Heart, singing ‘I’ll Never Stop Drea
ming.’ That song has hit the top of the charts for this week.”

  My ears felt as though they had been caressed by velvet. Lucy Heart? Had he said Lucy Heart?

  “She has a nice voice, doesn’t she?” said Mr. Rizzardi, noting my surprised expression.

  I nodded. Lucy? Of course, that had been Lucy. I tried to recall if I had been paying attention to any of the words. “What was the name of that song?”

  “‘I’ll Never Stop Dreaming.’”

  Was this a sign? Each time I played the piano or heard Emi practice, I knew that the piano was our legacy. Emi wanted to learn to play better. I knew how Mama had even said she had piano playing fingers when she was born. How could I even consider asking Mr. Rizzardi to take a look at our piano? How could I take away a dream my sister had? We’d get money another way. Somehow God would provide. Somehow, some way. Selling Mama’s piano was not the solution. We needed that piece of memory.

  “Where is the closest record store?” I asked, as another song started to play. I made my way toward the door.

  “Three blocks, on Thirteenth. Tell them Rizzardi sent you. The owner owes me money, but you don’t have to remind him of that. He’s my brother, and he already knows because I remind him every day.”

  “Three blocks and then do I turn left or right onto Thirteenth?” I asked. I really didn’t need to hear about how his brother owed him money.

  “It’s on the corner. You can’t miss it. It’s called Rizzardi’s.”

  “But this place is called Rizzardi’s.”

  “No, this is called Rizzardi’s Pawn, that is just Rizzardi’s.”

  I thanked him and left the shop. But the security I allowed myself to feel about God’s provision ebbed away when I passed a newsstand to see the words printed on a flier: Send them all back to Japan. I’d read about how there were organizations determined to rid the country of anyone of Japanese descent.

  And when I purchased Lucy’s record, the store owner seemed gruff. Was it because of the color of my skin and the shape of my eyes or was he just having a bad day?

  I left the store with my purchase and rounded the corner. From the paper bag, I pulled out the 78 rpm disc. I ran my fingers over the printed name on the cover: Lucy Heart. The song on side A was “I’ll Never Stop Dreaming”. Side B’s “Will You Forgive Me?” caught my attention as the word forgive seemed to jump off the cover and jab at my heart. Lucy’s face was not on the card cover, but rather, a photo of her taken from the back. She was in a blue evening gown with a string of pearls around her neck. She had on a glittery hat, the veil from it covered all but her mouth and a few strands of hair—hair that was blonde, cut short. They don’t want her to be Japanese, I thought. My stomach spun like a ride at the fair. I gripped the edge of the vinyl record and then placed it into the bag.

  Back at the apartment, I entered the kitchen where my aunt poured Emi a bowl of Cheerios. As she added the milk, she said, “How was your stroll?”

  I muttered that it had been all right.

  She looked me over. “You look like warmed death.”

  “You mean like death warmed over?”

  “That, too.” She filled the kettle with water. “You need a pep. I have just the thing. Ocha that I found in my box.”

  “From when we had to pack up and leave San Jose?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, it’s not old or stale.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Green tea keeps. I heard it keeps for decades.”

  I wondered if that was how long prejudices kept.

  After Emi finished her cereal and left the room, Aunt Kazuko poured tea from the teapot I’d bought for her. She said, “Guess what I heard?”

  With my aunt, there really was no telling. “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “I heard that one family stayed in the camp.”

  I rubbed a hand over my shoulder where a pain seemed to have developed. I really was too tired for her stories revolving around gossip she heard at the beauty salon.

  “This family didn’t want to leave camp, so they stayed at Heart Mountain. No place to go. Had to be evicted.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I don’t joke about these kinds of things, Nathan. The family said, ‘Where do we go? Our orchard we used to work on is gone, our house we rented is no longer vacant, where do we go? All we have is here at our barracks. We will stay.’” My aunt grinned. “You can laugh if you want. I did when I was told this story.” Then she added, “Funny, but it has a sad side to it, doesn’t it? Like you want to just hug that family and tell them it will be all right.”

  I smiled and drank my tea. It didn’t taste stale, just hot and soothing to my throat.

  I showed my aunt the record then. She took her time studying the cover, turning it over and over, commenting on Lucy’s hair color, and repeating the song titles. After a while she said, “You buy this, but we have no way to listen to it.”

  In my excitement, had I forgotten that we had no phonograph? Probably. I let a sigh fill the room. “Do you think your wealthy family has a spare phonograph?”

  She laughed. “I think they have at least three.”

  Emi danced into the kitchen. “Nathan, it’s time for my lesson. Nathan, come on!”

  “What lesson?” I asked, although I knew what she meant. I had told her that she needed to practice at least once a day in order to get good.

  She pulled me out of my chair and led me into the living room. We sat on the bench in front of the piano and she said, “What shall we play?”

  “You play something. I’ll listen. And remember, sit up straight.”

  “I know, I know. Don’t slouch.” She poised her fingers over the keys, took in a breath and then, from memory, played “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”

  I watched as she intently moved her hands over the keys. The five year old was playing the piano and not just any piano, but Mama’s Gulbransen. Years of selling fish had allowed us to have enough so that she and Papa were able to purchase the Gulbransen.

  I recalled how Mama would play for us on summer evenings when the windows brought in the outdoor aromas of whatever our neighbors were cooking. She would play while the rice steamed in the cooker and while Papa would fry the fillets of trout or sea bass.

  Suddenly I realized that Emi had stopped playing. With her legs swinging underneath her, she looked at me. “Are you sad?”

  I tried to shrug it off. “That was good.”

  “You weren’t listening,” she said.

  “I was.”

  “No, you know how I know you weren’t listening?”

  “How?”

  “You have that look in your forehead.”

  “What?”

  “It gets wrinkled. You are in another world.”

  I smiled, noting her choice of phrases. The last one was obviously borrowed from our aunt. “I was listening. You are doing really well.” We had to get this piano tuned. If Emi was going to play, we needed to invest in having a piano that sounded as good as it could.

  After dinner, I planned to ask my aunt if she knew of anyone in her To the Table group who tuned pianos, but instead, I turned on the radio to see if I’d get to hear Lucy sing. Tomorrow I’d go to the music shop and ask if the owner would let me play my record.

  Maybe by tomorrow, his gruffness would disappear.

  Her hair was now blonde. No longer black or long. I remembered her as the slim girl in the kimono, the young woman I fell in love with that often wore a silk hibiscus in her hair. Now she was famous. She’d never come back to San Jose. She was gone from me.

  Emi asked for a cookie.

  Seeing that I was the only one in the house, I realized it was up to me to get one for her. She followed me into the kitchen. The animal cracker box was empty.

  She started to whine.

  I let her whine, and even wanted to join her.

  She pounded her fists on the table top. The tears flooded down her cheeks.

  “Hey,” I said, “if you stop c
rying, I can find you a surprise.”

  But she wouldn’t be consoled. Her tears dripped down her cheeks. “I want my mama,” she said. “Everybody has a mama but me.”

  Quickly, I picked her up and held her. Just cry, Emi, cry. Let it out.

  When Tom got home from school, he spread his homework out on the kitchen table. He said he was thinking about going to college. “I’d like to teach,” he said.

  “Teach what?”

  “History. Or literature.”

  “What about space adventures?” asked Emi, who like the rest of us, had been subjected to Tom’s alien stories. Her tears had dried, and she had joined me at the piano where I’d played a few of Mama’s favorites. That seemed to have calmed her nerves, as well as mine. No, we would not be selling this piano.

  That night, we had a dinner of baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and grilled eggplant. Aunt Kazuko glazed the eggplant with a soy-sauce-sesame-seed-mixture she recalled from childhood.

  After our meal, Emi cleared the plates without breaking any, and Tom and I washed and dried them while our aunt sat at the table writing a letter in Japanese to her mother in Nagano. Emi joined her with a box of crayons and her coloring book.

  As I put the last plate into the cupboard, the phone rang.

  Aunt Kazuko answered the phone, an old model that was stuck to the kitchen wall. “Hello.” After a pause, she said, “I’m very fine. How are you?” Then, “Just a moment.” Covering the mouthpiece with one hand, she looked at me. “It’s for you, Nathan.”

  I dried my hands on the tea towel. She gave me a slight smile and handed me the receiver.

  Then she shooed Emi and Tom out of the kitchen and even closed the kitchen door behind her when she left.

  It didn’t take long to understand why she’d done this.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Hello, Nathan?” The voice on the other end was as soft as I had remembered it.