Under the Silk Hibiscus

by Alice J. Wisler

  The watch was back! After Mekley left, I gripped the round heirloom tightly, feeling the cold gold against my palm. Our family heirloom was part of us once again. I wanted to run over to the Shimizu’s house to tell Papa, but my feet wouldn’t move. I just sat there, stunned, and rubbed my fingers over the back, tracing the bamboo and crane engravings. This watch, this piece of history, this . . .

  I didn’t want it anymore.

  From Mekley’s story, I tried to envision what had happened the night Ken told Robert to take the watch from Mama’s suitcase. I recalled how Ken had reacted when I told him that the watch was missing, and when I’d informed him that I had found the watch. When I was told, that to settle the worries of the nearby Caucasians, I must pay for my theft, where had he been? What had he been thinking? Why hadn’t he stood up and told the truth?

  The truth would have gotten him into trouble. The truth would have been a mark against his reputation. Yet he hadn’t seemed to care how the lies affected my reputation.

  And Lucy, she had at least visited me in jail.

  I didn’t want it anymore.

  I placed the watch back into the box, and opening my closet, set the box on the top shelf. Sprawling out on my bed, I knew that my heart wanted something else. Not one thing, but one person.

  The Saturday before Monday’s opening day of the general store, Tom made some fliers to post around town on telephone poles and inside the front window of the shop. They read: Everything But Buttons Grand Opening.

  We had merchandise, all commissioned. There were embroidered handkerchiefs, plenty of canned items, fresh produce. Aunt Kazuko had done her part, and word of mouth—the best form of advertising—had spread over the town. I had ordered some candy and greeting cards from a catalog at wholesale. Tom helped me arrange these on racks by the counter.

  Together, we stood with our backs to the front door, so that we could get a good view of how our products looked laid out for our customers to see when they entered the store. Perishables on the left, non-perishables on the right.

  The man from the phone company arrived and installed a new phone, one that sat on the counter. He gave us a number that was ours. Tom walked down the street to the barber’s and asked to borrow his phone. When our store’s phone rang, I knew it was Tom. I answered anyway.

  “Hey,” he said. “We are really ready to be in business now.”

  Tom stayed with me the whole first day of business, which was a warm Monday in June. School had just let out for the summer. He hobbled around the shop arranging merchandise and trying to make the most of the circumstances.

  “I wish,” he said, “that we had money to buy more stuff to sell. We don’t even have any matches or towels.”

  But when the bell chimed, and the first customers entered, I relaxed. They bought plums and pickled beets and a few candy bars; it didn’t seem to matter that we had such sparse merchandise. We were selling and that felt good. And the store was as it was supposed to be—a place for local farmers and craftsmen to bring their products to sell. Just like To the Table, the group at church. Because no matter whether you had ripe plums to sell—fit for the emperor himself—or just a few handkerchiefs, what mattered was that you mattered, and you were welcome to bring it along.

  “Do you ever wonder what Ken is up to?” Tom asked, after a customer left with a paper bag of carrots and onions from the Yano farm, located north of San Jose.

  “All the time,” I wanted to say, but my pride got in the way. I decided to play it cool, like I was okay with the fact that I hadn’t heard from Ken in over a year. “Sure, sometimes. Do you?”

  “All the time,” he said.

  “I need a pep.” As soon as Aunt Kazuko came home from cleaning the wealthy house, she was muttering about how tired she was. She fanned herself with a pink paper fan. “I walked all the way.” She reached into the cupboard for the box of rice crackers. “Can you turn the kettle on for an old woman?” she asked, looking at me.

  I was seated at the kitchen table, looking over the finances from Everything But Buttons. Once I tallied up all our costs versus our profit, I could see that we were in the red. By the time I paid each person commission for their items they had brought to sell, and the shop’s rent for next month, we’d have only enough to buy a few groceries and pay half of our house rent.

  As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, now my aunt wanted me to do something for her. I wanted to balk, but did as I was told. I filled the kettle while my aunt removed her shoes and massaged her feet. Her heels were red, the color of blood. The leather pumps on the floor looked like a chew toy for a pet dog. “You need a new pair of shoes.”

  “Ah, no, these are fine.”

  She needed shoes; Tom needed a new brace. We needed. We always seemed to be so needy. We’d been the recipients of other people’s charity. It was humbling to think of how much we had been given. The list of items included old clothes, pots, pans, food, and even toys for Emi.

  As the kettle boiled, the phone rang.

  Seeing that my aunt wasn’t going to tend to either, I turned off the burner and then answered the phone.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hi, Nathan.”

  “Lucy!”

  “How are you?”

  “Great! And you? What’s going on in Manhattan?”

  After a few seconds of silence, I realized that she was crying. “Things aren’t working out well,” she said.

  “Why not? Aren’t you recording your next record?”

  “I want to come back to San Jose. Would you talk to my parents? Go visit them and tell them that I would like to come home.”

  “Can’t you call them?”

  She sniffed a few times. “I can’t. I mean, I did. They are upset with me.”

  “Why?”

  She only sniffed louder.

  “Is something wrong at your aunt and uncle’s house?”

  “I miss you.”

  She surprised me. As many times as I would have given up my right arm to hear her say those words, now they did nothing for me. “What is it you need?”

  “I want to come back to San Jose. Back to home.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Do you really think that I should?”

  What was the matter with her? I had just told her she should come back here. Why couldn’t she just do that? Hop on a train or bus or whatever, and come back.

  “I want to know what you think.”

  Why did it matter what I thought? Why did she feel she needed to ask me now? Why hadn’t she and Ken asked what I thought before they’d decided to have Robert Higashi steal the watch and then pretend that they had no idea what happened to it?

  “Nathan . . . ?”

  “Whatever you want to do.” And with those words, I hung up. My hands shook as I placed the receiver back in its cradle. “Why does she torment me by calling me?”

  “You are silly boy,” my aunt said as she poured us tea. “I don’t know why you have to be so hard on her. She cares about you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Why else would she waste her time and money calling you?”

  “She and Ken . . .”

  “What about them? She doesn’t still care about him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, I do know. She wasn’t asking if she should go to England. She wants to come here. Here, to be near you.”

  I wanted my aunt’s words to be true, but who really knew? I wondered if Lucy’s life was so out of control that she could never come back. I’d heard that it happened to people. People changed. Circumstances changed them.

  “Only God is constant,” my aunt told me one afternoon, as though she could read my thoughts. “He is the solid rock we have to stand on. All other ground is just sinking sand.”

  “That’s a hymn,” I said.

  “Yes, we sang it last Sunday. You were there in church. But you were so far away. You need to live now, Nathan. When you live the moment, you are rich
. No matter where you are, no matter how little money you have in your pocket.”

  Chapter Thirty

  My sister lived in the moment. She didn’t dwell on yesterday or seem concerned about tomorrow. But, even so, there were times I wanted to shake my head at her and tell her to think. She begged me to have a concert here at the house. She wanted to play the piano for the Shimizu family. “Please invite them over now,” she said one night at ten when I was trying to get her to go to bed.

  “If you want to have your own concert, then let’s plan one,” I suggested. “We can invite the Shimizus over tomorrow afternoon.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Shimizu and their two teen boys came over. They sat on the sofa as Tom, my aunt, and I served hot tea and chocolate éclairs from the bakery.

  First, there was the usual chit-chat, then Papa went outside to smoke, and when there was a lull in the conversation, I motioned for my sister to take her place on the piano bench.

  But Emi didn’t budge from her chair.

  I tried again to get her attention, but she ignored me.

  Finally, when the éclairs were all consumed, I said, “Emi wants to play a song or two for you.”

  Emi refused to play.

  I grabbed her hand and took her into the kitchen. After I shut the door, I cried, “You’re the one who wanted me to invite them over to hear you play. Now get in there and play something!”

  “What’s the magic word?”

  I looked at her. Really, did she think I needed to ask her to please play? “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Please.”

  She giggled. “No.”

  “Emi!” How could someone so small cause me to become so exasperated? “Come on . . .”

  “Say it.”

  I sighed.

  She hit my arm.

  “Mama wouldn’t let you get away with that.”

  “Yes, she would.”

  “She would not.” I used my stern tone, the one I reserved for reprimanding her.

  “She would, would, would!”

  “No! No! No!” I felt a pain grow in my temple. “Okay, please, Emi, play.”

  She smiled and marched into the living room. Soon I heard her play “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

  The guests thought it was great, but I knew it was a cop out. Emi was far more advanced than this selection. She had become lazy.

  The Shimizus clapped when she finished, a flawless piece. They asked for another, but she said she had to go. She came into the kitchen and said, “I did it.”

  “You can play more than that.”

  “I want a real teacher.”

  We couldn’t afford a real teacher, that was a fact. “What’s wrong with me? I’ve taught you to play, haven’t I?” I asked.

  “You aren’t a real teacher.” She crossed her arms across her chest and let her bottom lip protrude. She looked like the epitome of a spoiled rich child. “You aren’t really a teacher.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you live here. A real teacher comes to your house.”

  “Okay,” I said. I knew that she needed to play at least one more song for our guests who had come over under the pretenses of a concert. I could hear them in the living room, anticipating something more. Facing my sister and looking into those eyes that resembled Mama’s, I said, “Here’s the deal. You go play another song—a really hard one—one that will make everybody proud, and then I’ll get you a teacher.”

  She smiled and marched into the living room. I watched her pull out a sheet of music from the bench. It was “Silent Night.” She positioned herself in the middle of the bench as I had taught her and placed the sheet in front of her. Then she played. She played with skill and only made two small mistakes. I listened from the kitchen and breathed relief that she had been successful. What did it matter that it was a Christmas song, and we were in the middle of July?

  Her audience clapped, and she slid off the bench, gave a small bow, and entered the kitchen once more. She found me and said, “Make sure that you get me a good teacher.”

  After our guests left, she rummaged through the music sheets in the bench. Finding what she wanted, she pulled one out.

  I glanced at the title of the piece. It was “Amazing Grace.”

  She sat on the edge of the bench, slouched over, and started to play.

  Was she trying to make me miss Mama even more? Ever since Lucy had sung this song at Mama’s funeral, I associated it with the loss of my mother. Yet, Emi didn’t seem to care about nostalgia. She pounded the keys.

  I stopped her. “If you are going to play, you need to play well. And what did I tell you about sitting up straight?”

  “I can’t.” She swung her legs and wiggled her bottom.

  “You can.”

  “You are annoying me.” She sounded just like our aunt.

  “Fine, you play alone.” I turned to Tom and asked if he’d like to go see a movie with me.

  “Are you paying?” Tom asked from the sofa where he was reading some thick book on Shakespeare.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I had never had a nine-to-five job before, and the days at the shop wore me out. On weekends when I closed the store, I wanted to relax and not be bothered by a five-year-old. She didn’t know this; she just knew that she could push my buttons, and for her, that seemed to be entertainment.

  “How about me?” she asked, as Tom and I prepared to leave the house.

  Tom sat on the living room floor and slipped on his shoe that was attached to his leg brace. He worked quickly.

  Emi continued to ask, “How about me, me, me?”

  “Why don’t you just stay here with Aunt Kazuko and play with your paper dolls?” I suggested. The flat paper dolls my aunt had bought for her last week were in a stack on the coffee table, along with their clip-on outfits.

  “I want to go with you.” Quickly, she found her shoes where she’d last tossed them under the sofa, although our aunt was always reprimanding her for not placing her shoes at our house’s front door. “Like we do in Japan,” Aunt Kazuko often said. “Take off your shoes and come into the house.” To which Emi often replied, “But we are in America!”

  Emi sat on the floor to put on a pair of cotton and rayon socks she dug out of her saddle shoes. “Please, please?” She pushed her little clad-feet into the shoes and stuck out her legs—a gesture indicating that she wanted me to tie the laces.

  “All right,” I said, reluctance lining my tone, “but you can’t be so bossy.” I bent down and tied her laces.

  “You won’t like the movie,” said Tom, as he stood, adjusted his brace, and walked toward the front door.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “It won’t be one you can understand.”

  “Then let’s just get ice cream. I can understand that.”

  We asked our aunt if she wanted to join us, but she said she had a stomach ache. Sure enough, she traced it to something she’d consumed. “I eat at that restaurant on the corner of Fourth Street and Taylor. The unagi (eel) is so mazui (tasteless). I think it can’t be fresh.”

  “Which restaurant are you talking about?” I asked.

  “The one the Tateishi family owns. That hole in the wall. He’s engaged, you know.”

  “Who’s engaged?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Jennifer Tanaka and Jeff Tateishi are getting married next April.”

  “Woo,” said Emi. “I wanna go to the wedding.”

  “Ahh.” Aunt Kazuko leaned against the kitchen sink. “I hate to get sick off of food that is too mazui and cost too high.”

  Before we left, she called out to me. “You better find a girl soon. They are all being snapped up!”

  “Are you getting married?” asked Emi.

  “No,” I said, opening the front door.

  “He’s only nineteen,” said Tom. “He’s still a baby.”

  Emi laughed.

  “It wasn’t that funny,” I said.

  As we walked to
the ice cream shop, I noticed that Tom winced as he hobbled. He seemed to not be walking with his usual gait.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Brace just feels a bit tight, especially around the knee.”

  “He’s getting too big for the brace. He needs a new one,” said Emi.

  “Can’t you have it adjusted?” I recalled how we had often frequented a cobbler’s shop in San Jose before the war. Prior to the visit, Mama would have taken Tom out to buy a new pair of leather shoes. The cobbler—an elderly man named Mr. Tennyson—would attach the steel piece of Tom’s knee-ankle-foot orthotics to the heel of his right shoe. We’d sit on a bench in the front of the store and wait, as he hammered the heel. When the brace had been attached, Tom would slip into the right shoe first, and then the left one as Mama would secure the strap just below his knee and then the one above his knee. Tom would take a few steps. Sometimes Mr. Tennyson had to lengthen the brace, a job that usually required a doctor, but when Mr. Tennyson learned to do it, it saved all of us a trip to the hospital.

  “It’s also breaking,” said Emi.

  “Breaking?” I asked.

  “The straps are almost gone,” said Emi.

  I wondered when the last time Tom had been fitted for a new brace. It had been back in camp a year ago when Tom needed new shoes, and Aunt Kazuko had ordered a pair from the Montgomery Ward catalog. Mr. Kubo had found some tools to attach the brace to Tom’s new right shoe. But that brace had never been replaced. That brace must be over four years old.

  “Show him where it is breaking,” Emi said to Tom.

  “Nah, it’ll be all right.”

  Tom never complained and that wasn’t fair, I thought. Everybody deserved to complain every once in a while. Everybody deserved a day to say what was troubling him or her.

  “We’ll get you a new brace,” I said as I patted his back.

  “And a piano teacher for me,” said Emi as she skipped along the sidewalk in front of us.

  I pasted on a smile. “Sure.”

  And at that moment a prayer formed in my mind. It was just like so many others I had prayed over the years. God, you will provide, somehow, some way, won’t you?

  Please.