“Don’t even think about winning my father’s approval. I gave up on that a long time ago.”
Kaz’s anger gradually dissipated under her trembling, coaxing fingers. Tears of longing and confusion stinging her eyes.
Kenny was getting edgy. Things weren’t moving fast enough. Lily didn’t know what the guy had to complain about; people were lining up to join the Kitchen Workers Union. So far they had over three hundred members. She had no idea how they’d done it, but somehow the guys had managed to get the word out while keeping it under the radar. Young people, old people, men, women, they were all coming to see Kenny, full of rancorous stories about how they were sick of lying down and taking it. At last their stoicism had worn thin.
“It’s not enough. We have to do more to get people to join up. Faster.” It was a cloudy night. Kenny’s face was immersed in darkness.
“Why does size matter so much?” Akira asked.
“Yeah, it’s better if we keep things small and tight.” This was Shig now. He was standing beside Lily, too close, his rancid scent wafting over her. “We’re a secret tribe, right?”
“Can’t you understand?” Kenny sounded exasperated, like he’d explained this a thousand times before. “The whole point of a union is to encompass everyone. That way, when the shit hits the fan —”
“Everyone’ll be on our side.” Kaz. Finishing Kenny’s sentences, as usual.
The doleful wind filled her head with a desperate feeling. If Shig and Akira still had reservations, they certainly weren’t voicing them. Yet if Lily opened her mouth, they’d only gang up on her — call her a stick-in-the-mud, a priss, a scaredy-cat girl. Her objections would only serve to draw the gang closer together and push them to greater heights of foolishness.
“We have to do something to get more people pissed off,” Kenny continued. “Sure, they’re mad about the missing food and crap wages, but we have to make them really feel it. Make them fucking livid. So even nice old ladies like Mrs. Okada’ll see we’re not the enemy — the camp bosses are.”
“Like what?” This was Kaz or Shig or Akira. Lily couldn’t tell in the dark; all their voices were starting to sound so similar. “Another sabotage prank? The net factory — that was a good one!”
Last week, someone had snuck into the net factory during the night and torn a good deal of the weaving to shreds. Although Lily hadn’t been made privy to the plans, she’d known in her gut these were the guys responsible. The next morning, scores of people had been taken aside for questioning by the FBI. She’d been terrified, but by some miracle she’d been overlooked.
“Can you imagine the look on Howells’s face when he saw all those massive, busted cobwebs?” Shig couldn’t contain his glee. The whole thing had been his idea, Lily was sure of it. He’d probably carried it out single-handedly. The guy was fearless when it came to tearing and smashing stuff.
“Howells must’ve crapped his pants. The army needs those nets. Not gonna make their quotas now. Howells’ll have some serious explaining to do.”
“Might not get his Christmas bonus after all.”
Chuckles all round.
All except from Kenny. “You guys think you’re so smart to be pulling this prankster bullshit? It can backfire — it will backfire. Makes people think we’re the problem. While nice old Mr. Howells is out savin’ the world, we’re just a bunch of punks and lunatics.”
Silence. If anyone raised a word of objection, Kenny was bound to go off on a diatribe.
“Well, what d’you have in mind, Ken?” Shig asked.
“We need a different approach.”
“Like what?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. No help from you idiots.” A beleaguered sigh. “Something smarter, bigger.”
Aqueduct by night, hospital by day. It was a strange, starkly split existence. Thankfully, her responsibilities at the hospital weren’t arduous. She made tea and toast for the old folks and sat at their bedsides as they stared into space and sipped and chewed for so long they might have forgotten how to swallow. She rubbed lotion on the backs of their venous hands, discoloured like diseased leaves. If things weren’t too busy, the doctor would get chatty, telling stories about the old days. He never talked much about his childhood back in Japan. It was as though his life had begun the moment he got off the boat in Seattle, hardly speaking a word of English. He’d had to enrol at an elementary school to learn his ABCs. Lily giggled in delight at the thought of him as a teenager, surrounded by the apple-cheeked faces and golden heads of kids a third his age. By working hard, he’d managed to skip several grades while earning his keep as a houseboy. She wondered how he’d had the energy for it all. How had he managed to get into med school? And pay for it? But the doctor didn’t like to answer questions, so gaps in his life stretched open, years of exhaustion flying by in a blur of aching muscles that no one would ever be able to account for — least of all him.
Now and then, there were children who needed to be cared for while the doctor tended to their parents. Lily set up an arts and crafts table where she taught origami. The little unformed faces looked up at her with such guilelessness. They filled her with joy, these moments she didn’t deserve, yet the aqueduct and all its goings-on loomed up and overshadowed everything. It was as if there were two Lilys, another version of herself slipping in and out of the nocturnal shadows.
It started to irritate her when the doctor would ask questions. Maybe she’d spent too many nights listening to Kenny rant; no longer did she feel quite so sure where her loyalties lay. The worst part was that sometimes she couldn’t remember what she’d already revealed. In a burst of allegiance to Kaz and Kenny, she’d tell the doctor that things were calming down: they hadn’t been out to the aqueduct in ages and nothing much seemed to be going on — could it be possible that Kaz was straightening out at last? Rather than looking relieved, however, the doctor frowned and shook his head.
“You just told me yesterday that Shig pulled another stunt. He’s responsible for those obscenities in red paint outside the mess hall, isn’t he, Lily?”
“I told you that?”
“That and much more!”
Although she nodded, she didn’t understand at all: she didn’t understand why memories were constantly slipping away from her.
At times she felt unsure whether she could even trust the doctor. She’d seen the husky men coming and going from his office, their shadows casting grey stains into the hallway. It was no secret that the place was crawling with FBI. As soon as anything happened, no matter how insignificant — some scrappy fight — the G-men could be called in. Not that they did much. They asked a few questions, filed a report. That said, they had become pushier in recent days. Maybe they had quotas on the number of informants they had to recruit, pressure from on high to root out those bad apples. Was that why they’d been doing double duty, showing up out of the blue, swaggering around in their boxy suits, even when nothing much had happened? They hung around the hospital smoking, drinking coffee, and the soapy, waxy whiff of Brylcreem lingered in the air. “Hey, doc,” they called out, “you got a minute?”
At first Lily didn’t think anything of it, because it stood to reason that if some G-man lackey wanted a quick rundown of the week’s events, the doctor was an obvious source. He overheard things; he was privy to conversations when people were at their most weak and vulnerable. It never seemed they talked for long, though his office door was always closed.
But what was the doctor telling them? Indignation rose in Lily’s chest. What had he disclosed? Queasiness overtook her, deepening into panic. Had everything that passed through her lips made its way to their ears?
The doctor had worked out a nice situation for himself — that was what some people were saying. He’d cozied up nice and tight with the higher-ups. People were jealous that he still had his car and was allowed to leave camp whenever he wanted. They didn’t
like it that while they were stuck in the barracks, the doctor lived in a proper house at the edge of camp, and at the end of the war, he’d have money in his bank account, thanks to the handsome salary he was paid here. The rumours were so ridiculous that some people said his house in Little Tokyo was being protected from looting. “What’s he doing in return for all this?” the old men gossiped. “He must be doing favours for the camp bosses, informing on everyone, saving his own skin.”
Lily didn’t buy it. Not really. The doctor was just doing his best to protect his family, and wasn’t that what any man in his position would do? And then anger would bubble up inside her. While her own father was being held God knew where, the doctor was putting on his best suit and driving into town? What had he bartered to ensure his comfortable position?
Maybe it didn’t matter. Not that he was co-operating with the authorities, but if he were, would it be such a big deal, really? A burst of gratitude, mixed with something stronger and more confusing swept over her. It wasn’t like he’d ever inform on his own son. The doctor had reached out to her in order to protect Kaz. And now she was linked at the hip with Kaz, practically a member of the family.
After their meetings, they never left the aqueduct together. Safer that way, Kenny said.
Lily was usually the first to leave. It was colder now, especially at night; she could see the white plumes of her breath trailing behind, the chill penetrating her bones through her thin jacket. The ground shimmered like a moonlit lake, slick with the first dusting of frost crystals. Her feet sped up and slipped as she darted through that first stretch of bare desert, always the worst part, and then stuck close to the barracks. She counted one mess hall after another. Cut down an alley, rushed past several dumpsters, moonlight and shadows playing on the loose debris. Hands on knees, chest heaving, she paused to catch her breath.
Footsteps from behind.
A night guard.
Her body froze up, adrenalin shooting into her head.
The only place to hide was in a dumpster, so Lily held her breath and clambered in, crouching down amid the rotting potato peels and chicken carcasses. The rank odours cut off all air to her brain, the weight of her body rustling against the bags, each crackle like lightning.
A meaty hand grabbed her by the hair — needles of pain shot through her scalp, skull, brain. Her body, limp as an old pillow, lurched forward, and a punch landed in her gut, a thud of pure pain. Now the ground was careening toward her face, and all her meticulous preparations for the beauty pageant passed before her in slow motion: the nylon tied around her thighs, her humiliating, mincing steps — so silly, so vain, the words of Aunt Tetsuko, who’d cautioned against the pitfalls of vanity, echoing in her head.
Her face hit the dust and gravel gouged her cheek, elbows, knees. A kick landed in her rib cage and something horrible cracked within her. Aftershocks rippled through her core.
“What’ve we got here? You know what happens to little girls who sneak out after curfew?”
Daring to look over her shoulder, Lily glimpsed a fleshy face fringed with red hair. That guard. How terrified she’d been that first night she’d snuck out and seen him making his rounds. Tufts of hair stuck out the front of his uniform, open a couple of buttons. His cheeks were swollen with desire or something more awful, as though he’d been stung by a hive of bees.
His gaze softened as he recognized her.
“A family emergency — I had to —”
He crouched down and peered in, flashlight in hand, and the beam of light licked her skin. “Don’t even think about screaming, sweetie.” His damp fingers played with the hem of her skirt.
She struggled to get away, pull herself forward on her bleeding elbows. A strange laugh filled her head, and it had been years since she’d heard that laughter — if it could be called laughter at all. When she was a kid and her father started coming to her room at night, the sound would fill her ears, gently at first: nothing more than a cat mewling, gradually growing louder until it was strident and hysterical, like a donkey braying or a pig squealing. Strangely, there was something nice about how the noise — the laughter — overtook her mind, blanketed everything. She didn’t know who or what was laughing, but it surrounded her like an imaginary friend that would always be with her, no matter what.
A hint of movement down the alley.
Kaz. She recognized him in an instant. He always left the aqueduct a few minutes after her. Relief washed over her: he was coming to her rescue. The pain in her gut suddenly felt exquisite, crescendoing in time with her heart.
But he just kept standing there, his body pressed against the wall. Why wouldn’t he come over? What was taking him so long?
She stared down the alley, silently implored him. He just stood there, paralyzed, his face oyster pale. A soft belly pressed into her from behind, the big hand like a vice on her hip.
“What the hell?”
This voice was familiar. Through the fuzz of her battered ears, Lily recognized Kenny, could it be? Yes, she could see him on the periphery of her vision now. His steps pounded toward her head.
A whack — the creature on top of her spasmed. As she rolled away, pushing the body off her, she saw that Kenny had managed to get a hold of the guard’s club. Lying on the ground, she watched a thunderstorm of blows come down. The body had curled into a fetal position, jacket and shirt scrunched up, a layer of blubbery flesh around the lower back and bum exposed, sickly white.
Kaz jumped forward now. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This sicko attacked your girl. You wanna let him get away with it?”
“Christ, Kenny! Don’t you think the guy’s had enough?”
“Are you gonna help or just stand there?”
The reluctance — the fear — in Kaz’s voice was the last thing she’d remember, as she clung to the edges of consciousness. The guard’s moaning, the squeal of a dying animal. It echoed the animal laughter pealing across her insides, outer and inner worlds mixing in chaos. After a while, everything was lost in the black river through her brain.
Archive Fever
Eight
“If you got to be a dinosaur, Mommy, what would you be?”
“I don’t know, a brontosaurus? Those are the nice ones that eat plants, right?”
Rita fiddled with the antenna of the cordless; it sounded like Kristen was talking through cotton batten. Something barrelled by in the background. What she’d thought was static was actually the whoosh of traffic, past a roadside pay phone. Sighing, she tried to concentrate on what her daughter was saying: they were on a camping trip, headed to some park where dinosaur footprints had been discovered. Ever since her class had gone to the ROM last year, Kristen had been fascinated by the dinosaur kingdom. It was nice of Cal to indulge her.
Nevertheless, a jealous pang: why did he always get to be the fun parent who swept in for summer vacations while she nursed Kristen through ear infections all winter long? He treated fatherhood like dating: pack your time together into short, fun bursts. And the cavalier way he’d announced that he was selling his practice in order to move to Vancouver, where UBC’s dental school had offered him a faculty position, still rankled. As if divorce weren’t enough for a poor kid to handle. Yet Cal wanted a fresh start — who didn’t? — and when he wanted something, nothing got in his way.
“What kind of dinosaur would you be, Pumpkin?”
“A triceratops.”
“Why’s that?”
“They have eight hundred teeths. And when their teeths fall out, they can get new ones, just like me. Plus they have three horns to protect them from the meat-eating dinos. So they’re pretty smart.”
“You’re pretty smart.”
A wobble of emotion. The sheen of soapy bubbles about to pop amid crusty dishes. Pop, pop, pop. Everything went blurry. Rita rubbed at her eyelids.
Oh, God. Where was Lily?
Should she say anything to Cal? Best not to ruin his quality time with Kristen. The prick.
“Do you know that birds come from dinosaurs? So the dinosaurs aren’t really dead. Birds are mini dinosaurs. Can we get a bird again, Mommy?”
“We’ll see. You remember what happened to Popsicle?”
A solemn silence.
Popsicle had been their beloved budgie, which used to chirp and trill all day long, particularly when the phone would ring, like a mating call. One day they’d returned home to find Popsicle face down at the bottom of her cage. It had been Kristen’s first experience of death. Although she’d been sad, she’d been too young to understand death’s irreversibility. Only as the weeks went by did the truth settle in, and so many questions began to trouble her.
Rita had dealt with the situation the way she always did: by buying a book. The Big Goodbye: Fifty Ways to Help a Grieving Child. When it came to motherhood, she was the Self-Help Queen. She was the target audience that all those pancake-makeup shrinks on Donahue were hawking their wares to. She didn’t know the first thing about being a mom — just look at her own mother.
For years, she’d thought she didn’t even want kids. Cal had been the one who’d pushed for it. And then something kind of melted inside her, and every time she’d pass a baby carriage on the street, this hormonally driven flutter of longing would take flight in her belly.
Not that she ever became one of those women all gung-ho about motherhood. It was bound for failure. Of course it was. Way too much pressure to put on a poor kid, to expect her to somehow redeem one’s own train wreck of a family.
Still, if they were going to do this thing, they were going to do it right. Cal signed them up for a Lamaze class, where the instructor explained how pregnancy was all about gestation, which was as much about developing a body of ideas and attitudes about parenthood as simply carrying the fetus to term. While purging all trans fats from her diet and stocking up on garlic and brightly coloured veggies, Rita read countless books on how to bond with her unborn baby by listening and responding to every kick and reading stories that could be heard through the walls of her distended belly.
After the Bloom Page 9
