by Graham Rawle
“What’s the big idea?”
“Big idea?”
“You following me?”
“Following you? No. I’m merely going the same way.”
“To where, for instance?”
“Lakewood Drive.”
“You don’t say. That’s quite a coincidence. Who lives on Lakewood Drive that you’d know?”
“I do.”
Queenie was not buying it. “Oh really?”
“Yes, really. You want a hand with your bags?”
“I can manage.”
Queenie struggled on, but the bags were heavy and cumbersome and Kay was forced to slow her pace to maintain a respectable distance. Queenie turned again, embarrassed to think how inelegant she must have looked.
“I’m on my way to see about a room,” said Queenie. “Crestwood House. Lakewood and Seventh Avenue. You heading that way?”
Two minutes later, Queenie and Kay were walking side by side. Kay was carrying the two suitcases; Queenie, strolling more leisurely now, managed her tartan purse and portfolio, her coat draped casually over one arm like a catwalk model. She turned to Kay. “I’m Queenie, by the way.”
“Kay.” She might have offered her hand had she not been burdened with Queenie’s luggage.
“What are you, a desk clerk in some fancy hotel?” said Queenie.
“No. Why?”
“The uniform.”
Kay looked down at her suit. “It’s not a uniform. I don’t have a job right now. No one’s hiring—”
“Japs?”
“I’m actually American, but my face—”
“Is not.”
“I have a driver’s license too, but still no one will give me a job.”
“What about Chinese? Are folks hiring them?”
“In theory. China is an American ally. They hate the Japanese more than Americans.”
“Well. Say you’re Chinese. Who’s gonna know?”
“There is a difference.”
Queenie was unconvinced. “Not as far as Americans are concerned. You can get buttons; I’ve seen people wearing them.”
Kay shook her head dismissively. “I couldn’t do that.”
They continued for a while until Queenie decided to share some insider knowledge: “Olivia de Havilland was born in Tokyo. So was her sister, Joan Fontaine. But they’ve got normal faces. You know what I mean. American.”
Kay nodded, letting it slide; she was used to this kind of talk.
“Maybe you could get work as an extra. They often do movies that need orientals. Like in The Good Earth. There were crowds of Chinese in that. Of course they use white folk to play the main parts, but you could be a peasant or something.”
“Thanks, but I’m not Chinese.”
“It’s all the same. As a matter of fact, they’re shooting something Chinese at Paramount. I was reading about it. Alan Ladd—he’s pretty dishy—and Loretta Young. She’s OK, I guess—if you don’t mind the cob up her butt—though she doesn’t look very Chinese to me. But they’ve got real Chinese in it too. There’s what’s-her-name from the Charlie Chan movies. Iris Wong. You don’t hear much about her in the magazines. I guess she keeps herself to herself, being Chinese.”
They were on Lakewood now. Queenie looked around at the houses, imagining herself in the new neighborhood.
“So where were you born?” said Kay.
Queenie’s face soured a little. “Wisconsin.”
“Is it nice there?”
“It’s OK, I guess. If you like cheese.”
“Is Queenie your real name?”
“Actually it’s Victoria, but keep a lid on it.”
Kay was amused. “Victoria? Like Queen Victoria? Oh—Queenie. I get it.”
Queenie rolled her eyes. “Chalk up one for your side.”
Kay was out in her front yard—kind of coincidentally on purpose—when ten minutes later Queenie came trudging back along the street.
“No luck?”
Queenie was seething. “Goddamn room was already taken when I got there. I only called about it this morning.”
“Where will you go?”
“Beats me. Keep looking, I guess.”
Kay had an idea. “Wait there.”
Queenie dumped her bags. Hot and uncomfortable, she sat on a low wall and lit a cigarette, blowing a big exhausted sigh of smoke into the air.
After a while, Kay appeared at the doorway with an older Japanese woman. She smiled and nodded respectfully, her hands neatly clasped over her midriff. Queenie stood and bowed awkwardly, unsure of the protocol. Kay introduced them.
“This is Mrs Ishi. She says you can stay here.”
Mrs Ishi nodded. “Nice room on second floor.”
“She doesn’t normally rent to non-Japanese. I told her of your kindness.”
Queenie frowned. “Kindness?”
“On the bus. That man.”
“Oh, I wasn’t being kind.” Queenie realized she might be shooting herself in the foot. “Not really, I mean. That guy was a jerk. Begging your pardon, Mrs …”
Kay repeated the name. “Ishi.”
Mrs Ishi smiled warmly. “You have a job?”
“Sure,” said Queenie.
Kay was curious. “What do you do?”
“Well, at the moment I’m doing shift work at the Lockheed plant—you know, doing my bit for Uncle Sam while the men are overseas fighting the … er … Germans. But that’s not my main career. Actually I’m an actress. Just getting started in the movie business. Doing pretty good too, so far. I’m an accomplished dancer and I sing a little.”
“Would I have seen you in anything? I don’t go to the movies much.”
“Anne of Windy Poplars, He Married His Wife, Diamond Frontier. Just crowd scenes. I’m still waiting for my big break, but that could come any day. When opportunity comes knocking it doesn’t call ahead to make an appointment. No sir. You’ve gotta be ready and waiting with your hat and coat on. As a matter of fact, I have an important audition tomorrow. I switched to the early shift at the factory specially.”
“That’s wonderful. What part are you going for?”
“Well, it’s just a general casting, but it’s at Warner Brothers so, you know, they’re one of the biggest. Bette Davis, John Garfield, Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Barbara Stanwyck. Some of the best. Warners don’t do as many musicals as, say, MGM, but they could be very good for me. Ida Lupino is a contract player there too. Some say we look rather alike, but I’ve gone blonder now so I don’t really see it. Not enough to cause conflict of interests anyway.”
Kay smiled weakly. She didn’t know who Ida Lupino was any more than Mrs Ishi did.
“So. How much? For the room?”
Kay and Mrs Ishi looked at each other, as if trying to communicate a price telepathically.
Kay wanted to get an idea of the going rate: “How much was the other place?”
“Er, seven dollars a week. No, wait. Six dollars. That was it.”
Kay spotted Queenie’s ruse, but let it go. She and Mrs Ishi looked at each other again. Kay spoke to her loudly and clearly, like she might be deaf. “Six dollars a week, Mrs Ishi? Is that OK?”
Mrs Ishi nodded. “Six dollars? OK.”
The deal was struck; Queenie was pleased. “Well, all right. Let’s take a look at it.”
Mrs Ishi smiled. “You are friend of Kay. Kay very good girl.”
Kay decided to answer on her new friend’s behalf. “Oh I’m sure Queenie is a very good girl too, Mrs Ishi.”
Kay’s eyes met with Queenie’s and they both stifled a chuckle.
Mrs Ishi stood in the doorway to welcome her new tenant into her home. Kay helped her in with her luggage and the door closed.
That night, Kay lay in bed listening to Queenie unpacking in the next room: the shuffle of fabric, the metallic click of hangers on the wardrobe rail, the jangle of her bracelets, the scrape of her high heels on the wooden floor. From time to time Queenie would sing a bluesy phrase from a popular song.
My mama done tol’ me. Each time, she would hum the next line so whatever her mama done tol’ her remained a mystery.
It was somehow thrilling to have Queenie under the same roof, with her factory job and blossoming career in motion pictures. Her future looked rosy, full of promise. Now that people of Japanese descent were being banished from American society, Kay didn’t hold out much hope for her own future. Kay’s face was her passport to rejection, enforced segregation and incarceration, yet Queenie’s presence seemed to carry with it new hope for her too, even if it meant renouncing her national ancestry to become a Chinese peasant.
As she pondered this, Kay’s gaze fell on the calendar that hung on the wall beside her bed. It had been there since she first came to live at Mrs Ishi’s nine years ago after her parents died. Mr Cochran, the nice old man from next door, had brought it round on her first day there; his idea of a remedy for (what was then referred to as) her recent trauma.
“That, young lady,” he had said, holding the picture up for her to see, “is a little piece of heaven on earth. How would you like to live there, huh?”
It was a promotional wall calendar issued by the Taylor & Goodman Engineering and Manufacturing Company. Mr Cochran no longer had any use for it—it was two years old and all the months except December had been torn off—but he thought she might enjoy looking at the picture.
He was right.
The depicted scene, cheerfully unrelated to the manufacturing world of power-transmission machinery, was entitled When Evening Shadows Fall. The painting featured a picture-book lakeside cottage nestling amongst dense, verdant woodland. Above the treetops, soft cerulean skies were suffused with the burnt tangerine, pink and gold of a setting sun. In the foreground a profusion of foxgloves lolled like drunks among the ferns.
She studied the picture for hours like a detective scrutinizing a piece of evidence: the wisp of blue-gray smoke from the chimney stack promising comforting warmth from the fire within; the little rowboat moored to the jetty; the two rocking chairs out on the porch, and the pair of young deer taking a moment from drinking at the water’s edge to look up at the cottage like prospective homeowners admiring a piece of sought-after real estate.
That summer, determined to escape her grief, she spent much of her time daydreaming about boys. Older boys—men practically. She wasn’t interested in anyone at school, or in the film stars her friends doted on; she just wanted that perfect someone with whom she could have a deeply loving relationship, fired by the kind of exhilarating passion described in the romantic stories she had been reading of late. Books from the local library with titles like Homeward to my Love, Stranger at Newhaven and Meant for Each Other described the physical thrill of being swept up in the dizzying embrace of a tall, tousle-haired Stranger-at-Newhaven type, whose brooding determination belied, as it so often did, a sentient vulnerability. She would lie awake at night fine-tuning the details of their romance, running the carefully constructed scenario like a movie in her head.
The library-book men had names like Raith, Kyall or Trent, but she preferred something more regular: a Joe or a Bill. Her fantasy never included anyone else; she and Joe might have been the last two people on earth.
They lived together in the lakeside cottage; it was the perfect home for them. He was the artistic type, naturally: a carpenter or a sculptor—someone “good with his hands.” There was a vague notion of domesticity—her stirring something delicious with a big spoon while he was out on the jetty, fishing or repairing his rowboat—but most of her reverie centered around the long romantic walks she imagined they would take together through the surrounding countryside, the topography of which would require him, at various points in the journey, to scoop her up and lift her over a fence or hedgerow. She adored it when he picked her up: feeling his one strong arm around her back, the other tucked under the crook of her knees. She would wrap her arms around his neck and nuzzle into his collar, enamored by the nearness of him. She so enjoyed these moments that their progress became increasingly hampered by invented obstacles: streams, fallen trees or jagged rocks presented themselves to obstruct their path at every turn. At each one, Joe would insist on carrying her to safety.
Her daydreams seldom ventured beyond kissing, cuddling and being carried in the arms of a strong man (preferably all at once); it was all she wanted, though in the most amorous moments of her fantasy, when a clumsy stumble from a log brought Joe rushing to her side, gently lifting her ankle to remove her shoe and cradling her foot in his strong hand to assess the damage—a nasty sprain, I’m going to have to carry you—she would look at his handsomely shaped head, his broad shoulders, the tanned perfection of his rugged cheek and, feeling herself to be the most beautiful girl in the world, beautiful just for him, her thoughts would veer towards a daringly intoxicating moment back at the cottage as he carried her across the threshold.
SIX
ON THE NORTH side of a pasture of grazing sheep, a wide, low smokestack protruded from the ground emitting gray smoke, which was dissipated by the gentle Overland breeze. George and First Lieutenant Franks stood at the gate, mid-conversation. The lieutenant shook his head.
“You can’t expect us to take a plane up for a joyride just so you can have a look around. Do you know how much it costs to—”
“I realize that. But I need to see it from the air.”
“You have photographs. Extensive aerial reconnaissance.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. But it’s not the same thing.”
“I can assure you, Mr Godfrey, that the photographs you’re being given show exactly what an airplane sees.”
“How can they? They’re two-dimensional images. They only show me what the camera sees, not what the pilot sees; it’s not the same thing. The real world is three-dimensional. Besides, everything you give me is black and white. I have no idea how the colors I’m using appear to the eye from a distance.”
“All air reconnaissance pictures are black and white. Nobody sees it in color. This isn’t Gone With the Wind.”
“The pilot must see it in color. He’s not viewing it as a black and white photograph. I need to know how it looks to him. If I could just see it for myself.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be possible, Mr Godfrey. Sorry, but you’re a civilian. There are certain military protocols to be observed. Besides, we’re through here. Mission accomplished.”
Jimmy had pitched up during the exchange. Not wanting to interrupt, he hung back. His lurking presence was nevertheless a distraction. George decided to deal with it.
“Did you want something, Jimmy?”
“Can I have a word, Mr Godfrey?”
“Can it wait, Jimmy? I’m just talking to Lieutenant Franks.”
The lieutenant saw his opportunity to escape George’s badgering. “No, no. I don’t want to get in your way. Listen, Mr Godfrey. You’ve done a great job. I’m sure that after Major Lund and the colonel’s visit, we’ll get everything signed off. It’s time to move on to new ventures.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better get over to the airfield.”
The lieutenant patted George on the shoulder and headed off down the street. George was left feeling hollow, troubled by the idea of “moving on,” but tried to shake himself out of it.
MEANWHILE DiMaggio crushes Giants. Why Linda Darnell left home. War fashions for feminine safety. Horrors of Jap torture in the Philippines. Fifty hilarious pages of comedy. Shirley Temple grows up.
“Yes, Jimmy. What is it?”
“I’m worried about these sheep.”
“Really? How so?”
“They haven’t moved in days.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’ve been keeping an eye on them.”
“Damn it. They’re supposed to move.”
“Well, that’s what I figured.”
“This is exactly the kind of thing that could catch us with our pants down.”
Jimmy nodded in agreement.
George shook his head. “Jeez. Ho
w am I expected to think about new ventures when there are things like this to deal with?”
He straddled the fence and stepped into the field.
Jimmy was concerned that he might be partly to blame. “I would have done something, but the signs say not to stray from the paths and we were told never to …”
“No, you’re OK, Jimmy. You did the right thing. Besides, it’s not your job, handling livestock.”
“I don’t mind lending a hand.”
“You sure? All right. Thanks. All of the grazing pastures should be OK to walk on, but tread carefully. You don’t want to fall through a hole and end up in the bowels of hell, do you?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
George lifted up one of the sheep and carried it a dozen paces before setting it down again. Most of the sheep were posed head down in a grazing position; those without legs were deemed “sitting.” George picked up another and repositioned it a few yards away, facing in a different direction.
Jimmy held a sheep under each arm. “Where do you want these?”
“Anywhere. Just move them around. It’s OK if you put them in groups sometimes. They tend to do that, apparently.”
Together, they set about repositioning sheep. From time to time George would call out a suggestion: Bring those two over here by the fence. How about we scatter that group in the corner? Try turning those two to face the road. Each time, Jimmy complied, eager to please. After a while, the job seemed complete and the two men stood contemplating the new arrangement.
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