After the Bloom

by Leslie Shimotakahara

  “How’s your mother, Rita?”

  “Not good. Not good at all.” Each time she told the story of Lily’s disappearance, it didn’t get any easier. The whole thing came out sounding just as unreal as it had since day one. Waves of exhaustion washed over her.

  “Hontou? Lily’s missing?”

  “I don’t suppose she’s tried to get in touch with you?”

  “No.” There wasn’t even a phone in the room.

  “When was the last time you saw my mother? Does she ever come to visit?”

  Aunt Haruko straightened up. She still had a certain primness that came through in her posture. “I took care of Lily, never the other way. Lily was always too busy … being Lily. And she was never all there in the head-u.” Head-u. Soft, upward tails. Her voice had lost its edges, reverted to traces of the Japanese accent. And she still couldn’t say Lily’s name properly, the L’s abrading into R’s.

  “A pretty girl like her, kirei her whole life, everyone fawning all over her, she expected life to be easy.” A hint of envy passed over the old face. “It wasn’t, of course.”

  “The internment, you mean. I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the camp years?”

  “Eto ne, it was all so long ago…. Can’t we talk about something else?” A timid, placating smile. “I have chocolate in my drawer.”

  “This is important.” Rita hadn’t driven all the way out to St. Catharines to nibble on rancid chocolate. Her hands felt shaky and out of control, and her T-shirt clung damply to her back. “These are things that have bothered me for years — for my entire life, actually.”

  What Rita really wanted to say was: you owe me. It was the least Aunt Haruko could do after deserting them all those years ago — two kids left to fend for themselves in that house of craziness. Hadn’t she worried about what had become of them? True, that was before the days of Children’s Aid sticking its nose in everyone’s business. But still.

  She’d been too busy praying to her hidden Jesus to concern herself with the land of the living.

  “Please, Rita. I don’t remember much. I couldn’t have. Better not to remember, ne? In case the police question us. That’s what everyone said. Even the doctor.”

  They sat there in silence. The air between them seemed to tremble with sadness, guilt, disappointment.

  “So who am I supposed to ask about these things? Everyone’s dead. Everyone except you and my mother.”

  “Better that way.”

  Rita placed a hand on the mottled arm. She forced down a sob, her breath heavy. “What happened to my mother at camp? The scar on her cheek …?”

  “She never was the same after Matanzas.”

  “Matanzas?”

  “Yes, the name of the camp. Massacre, in Spanish.” A hollow chuckle.

  “Why didn’t Kaz do more to help her get better?”

  “Oh, Kaz? Kaz wasn’t even here.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course he was.” All those years they’d lived in Toronto, after the war, before she’d been born. How jealous Rita had always been that Tom had at least spent part of his childhood with their father.

  A shrug, a noncommittal half-nod. Aunt Haruko was confused, losing her marbles.

  “So? What happened to my mother?”

  For a second, she almost appeared to be enjoying herself — being in possession of some secret, coveted knowledge. This was the most attention Aunt Haruko had received in years, no doubt. A sad thought.

  “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone. It can be our little secret. Like the Hidden Christian prayers, right, Aunt Haruko?”

  The dull eyes caught the light. “The doctor tried to stop it, but it was too late — smoke was everywhere. Death in the air.”

  “Smoke? Death?”

  “Destruction of Satan’s world was happening even then.”

  The language of Satan, this was new. When Rita was a kid, Aunt Haruko never said a word about fire and brimstone. According to Grandpa, hell was the hardest idea for Japanese people to get their heads around: the finality of eternal damnation. The notion that there could be a point of no return, without any hope of being reincarnated in a better life.

  “‘They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Matthew 13:42.”

  “So back to my mother.”

  “That was terrible, but I know nothing, don’t you see? Ask someone else — don’t ask me!” She pulled the blanket over her head.

  “Lunch smells good,” Rita said at last.

  “Oyako don.”

  Always this same ridiculous dance of one step forward, two steps back.

  “Apparently, Lily had in her possession some photos of camp. Do you know anything about this?”

  “Hontou? Photos of Matanzas?”

  “They were taken in secret.”

  “I once heard rumours about those photos.”

  “Who was the photographer, I wonder?”

  A cold, rigid countenance.

  “Please, Aunt Haruko. Lily was going to use the photos to help the Redress Movement.”

  “Oh, redress.” She scrunched up her face. “They were talking about that even in my day. All the troublemakers want is to stir up hatred of us. They don’t know what’s good for them. Bakatare!”

  The ring on Aunt Haruko’s hand flashed, as sun streamed through the window. It was her late sister’s wedding ring, the grandmother Rita had never known. On her deathbed, she must have given the ring to Aunt Haruko (or maybe Aunt Haruko’d just claimed it as her own). In any case, it had loosened over the years and now slid down so her bony joint barely held it on. Most of the diamond chips had fallen out, leaving empty sockets.

  What a colossal waste of time. Rita’s car inched forward in the rush-hour traffic. Flashing lights up ahead: a couple of paramedics carried a stretcher to the side of the highway, where a silver sedan had been crushed in like a Coke can.

  In the adjacent car, she could see a cute little girl about Kristen’s age. The girl looked tired, her nose pressed against the window while her mother stared ahead angrily and exhaled clouds of smoke from a long, thin cigarette. Rita wanted to shake the woman by the shoulders and shout, “Don’t you know how lucky you are? At least your daughter’s here with you!” And what kind of mother exhaled smoke in a child’s face anyway?

  When they’d chatted on the phone yesterday, Kristen had sounded sullen. Her tummy hurt. The first thing that went through Rita’s mind, with a tremor of vindication, was that the poor kid was suffering from anxiety, induced by being so far away from her mother. It must be hard on her spending so much time with Jodi. How it irritated Rita, the mere thought of this other woman combing Kristen’s hair and helping her with her bath because Cal was bound to duck out of these chores if at all possible, lazy ass. But when Rita tried to talk with him about Kristen’s stomach pains, he snapped, “Oh, get over yourself! Our daughter isn’t stressed out over anything. She just ate too many cookies, okay? So shoot me. I’m a terrible father — is that what you want to hear?”

  Not knowing, that was the worst part. Not knowing what was ailing her baby, feeling totally shut out of her life. That was the sad reality of being a divorced parent.

  Rita might as well be living in a black hole. Which was how she felt these days about pretty much all aspects of her life.

  At least she’d found out the name of the camp. Matanzas. Some ghost town in the middle of the desert. Matanzas. The name had an ominous ring. “Smoke and death,” Aunt Haruko had said. On the other hand, she probably considered just about everything a step toward Armageddon.

  Mark Edo might know something about the place. The house meeting he’d mentioned was tomorrow evening. She couldn’t ignore a small flutter in her gut: anticipation, hope, maybe. He’d offered to help and something about his warm, straightforward sm
ile made her believe he might actually mean it.

  They kept a key hidden in a flowerpot out front. Rita had seen Gerald use it before and the whole thing had struck her as ridiculously dangerous. Maybe it didn’t even count if you handed the burglar the key on a silver platter. Now, however, she was glad it was there. When Gerald didn’t answer, she didn’t hesitate to let herself in.

  She headed straight down to the basement. Fumbling around in the dark, she pulled a string that turned on a light bulb. The room was crammed with chairs stacked on top of each other, some country-pine dining-room set that had gone out of style for a reason. Lampshades covered in dust, like old, dejected hats. Margarine tubs brimming with orphan buttons. Evidently, Gerald’s first wife had been as much of a pack rat as Lily.

  Photo albums were stacked on the floor and a few black-and-white photos had fluttered free. But they were just of a bunch of white folks dressed in frilly bonnets, like actors at Pioneer Village.

  What had she been expecting? Muddy roads leading nowhere, snow-capped mountains looming in the distance? Little Japanese girls with fragile eyes, gazing through barbed wire?

  She pulled down boxes, her fingers tearing up packing tape, digging inside. Old towels, yellowed and ragged around the edges. Cookbooks with recipes for casseroles that promised wonders with a can of cream of mushroom soup. Yet these weren’t the dishes that Rita had grown up with, none of this stuff was. That junk from their old house, which she should have helped Lily sift through, had been dragged off in countless garbage bags, piled high in some dumpster. She reached for more boxes, everything rattling, on the verge of breaking, but she didn’t care, something frantic set loose inside her. She had to find those pictures — they had to be here somewhere. Where the fuck were they?

  Thirteen

  Lily waved. Frank sank the ball through the hoop and dribbled down the court, churning up a dust storm. He was showing off, trying to impress her. The sky opened up, a sea of blueness flecked with white foam. Little boys clustered around him. Tim Dewson, tall for his age, one of the few Eurasian kids at camp, got the ball in and ran in circles making a victory sign, his thin frame vanishing in the blur, as though the earth itself were chuffing. Frank clapped the boy on the back and let out a holler. Lily cheered, flashed a smile. It seemed like an eternity since she’d been around happy kids.

  “Got a minute, Lily?” Frank said as the game was breaking up.

  Just as she’d been debating how to approach him, he made it easy. “Want to take a stroll together?” she asked.

  “Sure. Where to?”

  “How about past the firebreak?”

  “That’s the new part of camp.”

  Lily knew what he was thinking, goody two-shoes. They weren’t allowed to wander around the new part. It was a messy construction zone.

  To her surprise, he didn’t protest as she led the way. They stepped over planks and Frank tripped on uprooted sagebrush. Laughing, he brushed off his knees.

  “Have you ever thought about getting involved in the JACC? A girl like you — people would really listen. You could come to conventions with me and make speeches about the horrors of anarchy narrowly averted, thanks to the leadership of the JACC.”

  So it appeared she wasn’t the only one on a mission. Frank talked on, splaying his hands, and all Lily had to do was bob her head a little. The ardour in his voice caught her off guard: was it nothing more than passion for his cause, or was something more interesting driving his desire to spend time with her? But the flicker soon faded. So monotonous, such a good boy, in the end boring. Before she knew it, she was lost in a daydream about how pleased Kaz would be with her for taking Frank on a stroll. In that moment Kaz would know she’d do anything for him, simply because she loved him.

  Love.

  How bizarre that she was thinking about love. Later when Lily reached for this scene over and over in her guilt-ridden mind, it was the feeling of being in love — utterly, blindly in love — that came back to her, with the force of a slap.

  Love led her to take this path, this wrong turn. She couldn’t resist walking a few steps ahead of Frank, repeating the very route she’d taken so often with Kaz, her feet following her heart as if lured by a magnetic tug. Even if Kaz hadn’t suggested bringing Frank here, she’d have chosen this accursed route.

  As they made their way past the half-constructed walls, meandering through this maze that felt like a deserted city, she thought about Kaz pushing her up against the tarpaper, the frictive rub of his unshaven chin against her neck, the tang of his sweat rising sharply.

  Rustling somewhere behind. Something was off. Why was Frank lingering so far back? She froze up and called out to him.

  A dark, furtive movement. It happened so fast. Three men — wearing black masks — jumped out from behind a wall. One of them brandished a baseball bat, which he used to ambush Frank from behind. Did all three of them have bats? She ducked down behind a pile of plywood and curled up in a ball, knees pressed under her chin, eyes clenched. And yet she somehow remained horribly aware of the movement: the repetitive swing, Frank’s rising moans, the men closing around him in a shadowy swirl.

  She knew it was them. Kaz had become the ringleader in Kenny’s absence. This time there was no doubt in her mind that it was Kaz swinging the bat while the other two looked on. There was something all too familiar about the way the group had contracted, their heads bent together in some unspoken, tribal language. She didn’t even need to peek up and see Kaz’s shoes or the slight limp Shig always walked with. She knew who they were in her gut. She knew.

  She stared at the ground, at the scraggly blades of grass. A snake slithered by and as she watched it vanish, it seemed to be pulling her deeper inside herself.

  Kaz kept swinging and the thwack started to sound different: more like a crack — against bone, against skull. That crazy braying had started up in her head, and it was getting louder, but it couldn’t be loud enough. At least her father had known when to stop, sensing how much her mother could take. With Kaz she detected no such restraint. Something had crossed over in him, as if, with every blow, he were breaking free from being under his father’s thumb, all those years of enforced civility now giving way to some madness inside.

  With a jolt her legs came unfrozen, and she tripped on a rope of sagebrush. She picked herself up and ran, pain shooting through her shins. Yet it wasn’t the pain that made her scream. She was screaming without even realizing she was screaming — for help, for someone, for anything.

  Fourteen

  The meeting was at a mustard-coloured brick bungalow with perfectly spherical hedges out front. Rita stood at the back of the warm, crowded living room. The news of Lily’s disappearance had made its way through the gossip circuits. Upon learning that Rita was her daughter, people were full of concern. A couple of ladies from the Nisei Women’s Club were particularly anxious, their carefully plucked eyebrows jumping up like Noh performers (“How long did the police stay?” “Did they dust for fingerprints? Take strands of hair from her hairbrush?”). Not that they had much to contribute. Despite having known Lily for years, they didn’t seem to know her very well; they’d exchanged recipes for Christmas cookies and that was about the extent of it.

  Mark was running around greeting people. Maybe he hadn’t seen Rita yet. And then he spotted her. He came over and gave her a hug. “By night’s end maybe I’ll have converted you. You’ll be going door to door handing out redress flyers.”

  “Ha. Not likely.”

  “We’re about to get started, but you’ll stick around after?”

  Nodding, she mentioned there was something she wanted to ask him.

  Mark looked curious. Then he turned all businesslike and called the meeting to order. He proceeded to discuss quite a bit of JCNA news regarding meeting times, fundraising, media outreach, awareness-building campaigns, petition signing. They were going into another round of negotiations
with the Minister of Multiculturalism next month. Rita hadn’t realized how much effort and coordination went into the whole redress machinery. It was like someone was running for election.

  “All right, now I’d like to get started on the main thing we do here — sharing memories.” Mark talked about how any kind of memory was acceptable; it didn’t have to be a recollection tied to the internment. Younger folks were welcome to share their thoughts, too. The purpose was simply to open up dialogue about the community and collective past.

  His relaxed smile and steady voice were rather disarming. Not long after he’d opened up the floor, a grey head bobbed up. The woman had dressed up for the occasion in a pink silk blouse and pearl necklace. She took a deep breath and began speaking rapidly, afraid that if she didn’t get it all out she’d lose her nerve.

  “My name is Mrs. Moto and I was interned at Kaslo, a ghost town in the interior of BC. But before we were shipped off, we were held for many weeks at the Exhibition grounds in Vancouver, with so many others in the same boat. I was newly married and expecting at the time.” She talked about the shortage of food and crude, smelly living conditions. The humiliation of being compelled to give birth to her first child while confined to a dung-stained stall. Strangers had been standing around on all sides, some trying to help, others just watching. By the time the doctor arrived, it was too late — the baby was already in her arms. “Just like I was a cow, having birthed my own baby in a barn.”

  Mark didn’t look at all uncomfortable. “That must’ve been a frightening experience for you, Mrs. Moto. Was your baby all right?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m that baby.” A middle-aged man, balding, with an elaborate comb-over, stood up.

  “He never was one for visiting farms, though,” Mrs. Moto added.