Under the Silk Hibiscus

by Alice J. Wisler

  Within one second, I was back at camp, recalling the curve of her smile.

  “So how are you, Nathan?”

  I wanted to say, “Great, now that I’m talking to you,” but I refrained. “Good. Good. We got a shop.”

  “A fish market?”

  “No, a general store.”

  “That’s great.”

  “How about you? What are you up to?” I tried to sound casual, as though I knew nothing about her and had not bought her record, and that if I had a record player I would surely listen to it fifty times a day.

  “Well, I’m singing. I made a record.”

  “Good for you. I always knew you would get there one day.”

  “It’s been a hit.”

  “Really? What’s it called?”

  “The song that has been on all the radio stations is ‘I’ll Never Stop Dreaming.’”

  “Lucy Heart? That’s you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you were going to be Meredith Rose.”

  She giggled. “I remember that. That seems so long ago.”

  I braced myself. I was sure she had called to either ask about Ken or talk to him. Now that she was Lucy Heart, I was sure she wanted even less to do with me. Me, clumsy, never sure of what to say, me.

  “Where’s your shop?”

  “It’s on East Empire. It’s a tiny place, but it’s a start.”

  And soon we were laughing and talking like old friends. We talked about the lousy food at camp, the cold weather, the way the wind whipped across us from Heart Mountain. She didn’t bring up Ken or Mekley. It was as though we both knew what could and couldn’t be discussed.

  “My mother said she saw you a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, at the grocer,” I said. “She was buying lettuce, I think. I was buying bread and butter. We talked about Hiroshima and she recalled that Papa has family there.”

  “Are they all right?” Lucy asked.

  “He had several friends and family members die,” I said. “Others are now sick from the radiation.”

  “War is horrible. I hate what it has done.”

  “Everybody has been affected. This whole country is trying to get back on her feet.”

  Suddenly she said, “I have to go now. My producer wants me to make another record, and we have to negotiate all that.” Quickly, she added, “I know you don’t like good-byes so I’ll just say, see you later.”

  When we hung up, I stood in the kitchen and wondered if our conversation had really happened. Perhaps it had just been some fragmented story I had created in my mind. My mind spun back to the day Lucy left camp. I recalled how our mutual friends said she had gotten out of the dreary camp and was going to Manhattan to be a star. She had not told me good-bye then because I had not wanted her to.

  And now I felt as empty as I had then. She had pursued a dream, and her dream to sing professionally had come true.

  My dream was lagging so far behind.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “We used to have a fish market,” I said to Tom and Emi at dinner one night.

  “I remember it,” said Tom. “I used to walk down to it and help Papa ring up the customers.”

  “That was Papa’s passion. But I’m not really good with fish, so I decided a general store might be better.”

  “What are we going to call the shop?” asked Emi. This seemed to be the question of the week, and so far, no one had a name we could all agree on.

  I debated as I walked around town. Should it be the Mori Market? Mori was clearly Japanese. I wanted it to be a place where everyone could come to shop. Yet what was wrong with a Japanese name?

  My aunt was making raisin cookies. She had received the recipe from someone at her To the Table group. As she dropped the dough onto a greased cookie sheet, she asked, “How about The Mori Market?”

  “What if we called it by a more American sounding name like Smith or Barrymore?” I asked.

  “Smith? Barrymore? It wouldn’t be us.”

  In the end, Papa suggested a name. After dinner, he sat on the sofa and watched the rain coming down, forming puddles in the street. “You want to sell everything there, don’t you? People’s vegetables and fruit, greeting cards and candy bars. It sounds like it will be a place to get everything but buttons.”

  The rest of us looked at each other and smiled, like we knew. The name had been decided. We’d go with that.

  “Everything But Buttons,” I said. It was a whimsical, unique, and cute enough name that everybody should want to shop there.

  After the others had gone to sleep, I sat with Papa on the sofa where he was listening to the radio. “I wanted it to be a fish shop,” I said, because I felt that I owed him that. “But I don’t know enough about fish. The people in the church told me that people need a place to sell their wares. Do you think this is a good idea?”

  He put his fingers against his chin and looked me over a few times. “You are so tall now, Nobu. I remember when you were born. I was so grateful that you had at last arrived, safe and sound.”

  “Mama said I cried a lot.”

  “You were determined. You never seemed to let up. Always moving, always wanting to see what was next. It was as though childhood was beneath you, and you wanted to be rid of it to move onto more.” His sigh was deep and robust, like a strong cup of coffee. “You were your mother’s favorite son named Nathan. Do you remember when she used to tell you that?” He almost smiled.

  “Yes. Yes.” You know you are my favorite son named Nathan. I often wished she could have said, You are my favorite son. Period.

  “She used to play the neighbor’s piano before we got our own. She said that playing made her feel the most alive and closest to God. She said that a person should always be close to whatever made her feel alive.”

  I waited for him to tell me more about Mama and her love of music, but that was all he said. It was as though thinking of his precious Etsuko had drawn him into a silent place, a place I could not go. He turned the radio off, rested his head against the back of the sofa, and closed his eyes.

  I thought of leaving the room, but something tugged at my heart, and I knew that I needed to stay. “I want to tell you something,” I said. “I hate to bring this up, but . . .” I took in a deep breath.

  His eyes were still closed. Perhaps this was the time and place to tell him when his eyes were shut, and I didn’t have to look into them to confess that the watch was gone.

  “Something awful happened in camp. Really terrible.”

  Papa remained motionless.

  “Papa? Did you hear me? Papa?”

  I wondered if he was asleep, but then he shifted his head to the left and said, “What happened?”

  “The watch is gone. Our watch was stolen.”

  His eyes opened. He looked at me, sat up.

  “Our watch was stolen,” I repeated.

  “Did the Americans take it from you in the camp?”

  “No. Yes. Yes, they took it from us.” I wouldn’t tell him that I stole it back and was sent to a cell because of my actions. I wouldn’t break his heart even more by telling him that Ken had had something to do with it.

  He rubbed his chin. “What a shame.”

  I had expected him to do more, to lash out, to scream, to blame me.

  He searched his pocket and muttered about the whereabouts of his pack of cigarettes. Finding his pack under the coffee table, he pulled out the last cigarette, lit it with a shaky hand, and took a puff.

  “I tried to keep it safe. It was in Mama’s suitcase.” I had vowed to protect it, taken an oath. But none of that had kept our family heirloom secure.

  “The war stole much from all of us,” he said. “We all lost.”

  And suddenly, the watch didn’t seem important anymore.

  I went over to sit next to him, edging as close to him as I could get, like I did when I was a little boy. I breathed in his familiar smell, noted the mole on his neck, the way it felt to be close to him. />
  After he snuffed his cigarette into the ashtray, he put his arm around my shoulders. “You are my special boy,” he said. “You are my special son.”

  We sat like that for a few minutes, just the two of us Mori men, without a family treasure, but nevertheless, together.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Our general store was going to be a reality. I made a list of everything we needed for it, including a cash register. Aunt Kazuko asked around at church and came up with an old one that a former store owner was willing to donate. She also brought me a door chime in the shape of a little silver bell.

  “A door chime?” I questioned.

  “Every store has to have one. It is a good way to alert you, and you need to be ready for all those thousands who come to shop.”

  Thousands, I thought. Was my aunt that confident about our store?

  Opening day was drawing closer. Farmers as far south as Coyote had called to ask about selling produce at Everything But Buttons. Locals from the church called almost every day.

  One elderly gentleman with a cane, and a mustache like General Sato's, often walked past our front porch. Each time he saw me, he’d cry, “When does your store open? Will you sell candy bars?”

  There were three times in my life where I was so flabbergasted that I wasn’t sure what to do. That spring morning in 1947 was one of them.

  I was waiting for the coffee to percolate and looking over the ledger to make sure that I had recorded all the non-perishable items people had brought for me to sell for them. I’d forgotten to write down a box of handwoven pot holders, but just as I started to write, my pencil lead broke. While I rummaged through kitchen drawers, searching for the sharpener my aunt had, there was a knock at the front door. Seeing that Papa was not going to make his way to the door, and Emi was too occupied playing with her baby doll at his feet, I walked toward the door.

  Just as the knock repeated, I swung it open.

  There he stood; at first I had trouble recalling how I knew him.

  For one thing, he wasn’t in his uniform, but dressed in a pair of khaki trousers and a blue and brown plaid shirt.

  Gloom spread over me. What was this man who still tormented me in my dreams doing here?

  “H-h-hello. I . . . uh.”

  Immediately, I sensed something was wrong. At the camp, this soldier never stuttered.

  Awkwardly, he handed me a small cardboard box.

  I suppose in all the movies, this would be the time I’d opened the box, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  “It’s there,” he said. “Your watch.”

  My lips were dry. Slowly, as though I was in some sort of slow-motion trance, I peeled back the lid. Inside was the Mori watch. The morning sunlight coated the gold casing for a brief moment. If I turned it over, I would see the bamboo and crane etchings. I felt like a kid again, but I didn’t want to give this man the satisfaction of being overjoyed. “Thanks.” I prepared to shut the door.

  “How have you been?”

  “Fine.” I was not going to let on that I was caving inside over the fact that our finances were so low.

  “I wanted to say how sorry I am.” He looked me in the eyes. I had never noticed how crystal blue his eyes were before.

  “Sorry?”

  “For the watch. For what I did. For all of it.”

  “Well, thanks for returning the watch.” I took a step back and pushed the door to an almost shut position.

  “May I come inside?”

  I didn’t want Mekley in my house. He had no place in my life.

  “Please.”

  Sometimes when you want to do what you want to do, you plow ahead and do it, neglecting to stop and listen. Then there are other times when you decide that it might do you well to listen. The way I see it, when we come to that crossroad of choices—to move ahead or to pause—we are given one second. One second to make a decision. I wanted to plow ahead—to shut the door in Mekley’s face. But for whatever reason, I took a breath and listened to that inner voice. Perhaps it was from God. I’d like to think it was. Because it certainly didn’t come from my heart.

  I let Mekley inside. Papa stood, shook his hand, and then led Emi outside.

  “Why do we have to come out here?” I heard my sister cry.

  “Let’s go over to the Shimizu’s house,” Papa said.

  When she continued to protest, my father said gently, “They have animal cookies.”

  After I removed one of Emi’s blankets, and Tom’s hardback of a collection of poetry off the sofa, I motioned to Mekley to take a seat. I placed the box with the watch on the coffee table, and sat across from him.

  “How have you been?” he asked again.

  “We are fine.” Thoughts of the times he teased me flooded over me. My head throbbed from the memories.

  Mekley sat on the edge of the sofa, like a sparrow perched on the end of a lonely tree branch. “I was in a small inn in Nice, France, during some leave time,” he said.

  I wondered if it would be rude to ask him to go. I was not in the mood for some recap of his war days.

  “While I was there, I got to wondering about God and life and all those things that seem to be prevalent, especially at two in the morning.” He smiled. His smile was different now, not as assured. I noticed that he was missing his pinky finger and his ring finger on his left hand. Seeing that I was staring, he lifted his maimed hand and said, “This happened when a grenade went off in a village where we were stationed in France. Five men in my platoon died that day.”

  He wanted to talk, the Mekley I had known had always been a talker. I listened as he reminisced about battles and buddies of his who had died. The deeper he got into his memories, the stronger his southern accent became. He spoke of God and how when he was lying in a hospital bed in France, a chaplain listened to him confess his sins. “I made a promise then that I would get that watch back to you. I knew it was important to you, the way you had to have it back and snatched it off the dresser at the Towson Farm.”

  I regretted that day. It cost me.

  “I didn’t know how to do right back then. I am sorry.”

  Of course I wanted to know how he got the watch in the first place. “Where’d you get it?”

  The question seemed to make him jumpy. He nodded toward the box. “Your brother gave it to me.”

  The words stung. All my anger seemed to come back with a rush. How could Ken have done that! What kind of loyalty had he had to our family? Wait a minute, I thought. He’s lying. Ken wouldn’t.

  Mekley’s eyes were cast in shadows. “I’m afraid I used to drink a lot, and often. I was bothering the girls, and so to keep me from them, your brother gave me the watch.”

  “What do you mean bothering girls?”

  “Flirting with them. One in particular. I was drunk that night. I’m not proud of what I did.”

  “But why did my brother give you the watch?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Your brother and I had formed sort of a friendship. I would get him cigarettes and alcohol. He had his gang of San Jose boys, and in order to be in the gang, you had to pass an initiation. One boy kept begging to be part of the group. His name was Robert Higashi, a little fellow. Must have been only about thirteen. Ken said he could join only if he stole a watch.”

  “Our watch?”

  “Yes. Ken told him which barracks to enter and where to find it.”

  “But why?” I tried to hold back my anger that seemed to appear from some dark corner of my heart. This anger had been part of me for a long, long time. “Why would he have someone steal our family watch?”

  Mekley looked at me as though I was thick in the head—like Henry Towson—unable to grasp concepts and so was made to sit at a table and draw. “To keep me away from Lucy.”

  “A watch to keep you away from Lucy?” My voice escalated, thundering throughout our house.

  Mekley coughed, cleared his throat and said, “I was drunk. He
promised me the watch, and I had to promise never to bother Lucy again.”

  “But why the watch? Why not money?”

  “Look, it was all wrong. I’m sorry. I know it’s very valuable. I kept it safe.”

  “Why didn’t Ken just report to the project manager that you were bothering Lucy, or whatever it was that you were doing?” I opened the box and turned the watch over. There were the etched bamboo trees and two cranes. As a child, I had loved any chance I got to touch the watch; it was a sacred piece of history and we—the Mori family—had earned it by our bravery. “Why did he feel he had to do it this way?”

  “He was not the brightest man. He reacted on his gut, but then again, so did I.”

  “You two were friends?”

  “I suppose.” He let out a raspy wheeze. After a moment, he said, “We both liked Coca-Cola and women and Glen Miller music. But after I was told to stay away from Lucy, it all changed. He hated me. Hated me for ruining things. And then when he wanted to turn me in, he couldn’t. I had too much on him. His gang, the empty barracks they used for their hangout, the items I would bring to them.” Mekley coughed. “Sorry,” he said. “This cough is one I brought home from the war. My doctor said it’s like perpetual bronchitis.”

  I thought of Mama and the pneumonia she had contracted in the camp. Mekley’s cough wracked throughout his body, as I tried to push aside the memories of her last days.

  “Would you like some water?”

  He nodded and cleared his throat. “That would be nice.”

  If someone had told me three years ago that I would be pouring a glass of water for a soldier who was as ugly and beastly as Mekley, I wouldn’t have believed him.

  War certainly did have a way of changing us all, I thought. War made the toughest of men diminish into little children. But deep down, I knew that the only one who could make a man as mean as Mekley apologize was the very touch of God. Clearly, this soldier had had some sort of divine encounter.

  Amazing grace that saved a wretch like Mekley.

  As the water flowed into the glass from the spigot, I thought of the water of baptism that cleanses every wretched one of us.