The Secret of the Nightingale Palace (35 page)

Anna picked up one of the sugar leaves and set it on her tongue, where it began to melt. “Nobody's perfect.”

Henry raised his cup as if to toast. “Nobody's perfect,” he agreed.

Anna let her eyes settle on the strip of pink flesh on her thumb. “I've been in an in-between period since he died,” she said.

“In-between what?”

“In-between that part of my life and whatever comes next.” The sugar leaf had disappeared, and Anna dug around in the cracker bowl again, pulling out four or five little peas and popping them into her mouth rather manically.

Henry said, “I had a sort of in-between period at one point in my life, too.”

Anna looked at him. “When was that?”

“Living in the camps, out in the desert,” Henry said. “I was so lost. What did I know of the desert? I'd seen pictures of the dunes of the Sahara, but this place was ugly. Even the mountains were ugly, like animals stripped of their skin and left to die. My grandchildren go camping in the desert. They tell me it's so stark and beautiful and the nights are full of stars. I never saw it that way. I used to walk behind the barracks. It was just dirt and scrub brush out there. Going back there frightened me, but I went as often as I could. It gave me comfort to be alone. You know what I did?”

“What?”

He closed his eyes. “It's a cliché. I would walk out there, all alone, and I would squat down and dig my hands into the dirt and then lift up handfuls and let it sift through my fingers. My sister was an artist. She collected that dirt and found fossilized shells in it. She used the shells to make tiny, exquisite pieces of jewelry. But I wasn't like that at all. I carved wood, but I hated every minute of it. I felt so sorry for myself. I would just think, ‘This is my life. This is my life passing by.' ” He opened his eyes and looked at Anna. He looked terribly sad for a moment, but then he suddenly laughed and shook his head. “I was quite melodramatic as a young man. My emotions were always right on the edge.”

“I feel that way sometimes,” Anna said.

He poured them both more tea. “Grief is a kind of prison, too.”

Anna thought about this for a few seconds. “I keep thinking I need a plan,” she said.

“You don't need a plan. You just need to move through the day with the idea that something good could happen to you. It might not have happened yesterday, but it could happen today.”

The waitress had brought the portfolio over from where she'd kept it for them in the kitchen, and Anna opened it now. Together, she and Henry went through every picture. She told him how, over the past few weeks, she had often copied Hiroshige's images into her sketchbook, and she told him that the work inspired her. He seemed to take pleasure from that, and pleasure, too, from paging through the book with her. “My father loved this one,” he said, pointing to one of the Hiroshige images, a narrow road running up the side of a mountain with the ocean far below. Of another image, a village gate at night with a moon hanging over it, he said, “My mother used to sing songs about the moon.”

Anna turned the book to the Kunisada prints and found, among the “lady pictures,” the one of the girl in front of the screen. “This is my grandmother's favorite,” she said. “She told me that it describes the emotions of her life back then.”

Henry stared down at the picture. “I didn't know that,” he said. “Really?”

When they reached the end of the book, Henry closed it and held it on his lap. “On the telephone, you mentioned that you planned to return these to me,” he said.

“Your family gave them away under duress. They belong to you.”

He shook his head. “We experienced duress, yes, but not in regard to these pictures. They're Goldie's.”

“No. Your family should have them.”

“Anna?”

“Yes?”

“They're Goldie's. If she doesn't want them, they're yours.”

She could see in his face that the discussion was over. “Thank you,” she said.

They finished their tea. Henry looked at his watch. “I suppose you want to go back to the pond now?”

Anna rubbed at the place on her hand where Ford's ring used to be. “It's not a bad spot, really.”

“What?”

“The fish pond in the Japanese Tea Garden. I've been trying to find a place for it.”

Henry gazed at her. “You're thinking of leaving the ring there?”

“Why not?”

The waitress came and cleared away the dishes. Henry seemed to be considering Anna's decision. After a while, he said, “It is a pretty place, under the willow trees.”

They walked out toward the front gate of the garden together. “Did things get better for you, when you left the camp?” Anna asked.

Henry looked at her. “Are you wondering if I've remained miserable for the rest of my life?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“No. My experience in Utah changed me completely. I became determined after that.”

The clouds had parted and they stopped in the shade of a gingko tree near the front entrance. Anna's smelly clothes had dried stiffly and felt increasingly uncomfortable in the heat. She was not quite ready to say good-bye, though. “This may surprise you, given all that I said, but I'm actually kind of hopeful about the future,” she told him.

Henry placed the tip of his cane between his feet, resting both hands on the knobby handle. He was looking at Anna more seriously now. “Hope is good,” he said, “but hope is passive. You're responsible for yourself, you know.”

Something in this advice made Anna think of Goldie. “My grandmother says, ‘Make your own party.' ”

At that moment, it seemed to Anna that Henry's eyes became infused with a different kind of light. His face relaxed and slowly eased into a smile. “That sounds just like Goldie,” he told her. And then, though it was obviously time to go, they remained where they were for a few more seconds, looking up at the pale green leaves of the gingko, which spread over their heads like thousands and thousands of tiny fans.

20

The Heart of It All

B
y eleven thirty the next morning, Anna was guiding Bridget toward the curb in front of the international terminal at SFO. Goldie had been checking her money and passport during the drive, and for that last stretch of freeway between South San Francisco and the airport exit, she sat with her hands folded on her purse, giving Anna last-minute instructions.

“You can talk to your father about where to sell the car, or like I said, you can keep it. It's nothing to me. I'm done with it.” And then, a moment later, she drifted in another direction: “You could stay here for a week or so. Keep the hotel room and be a tourist. Put it on my credit card. I couldn't care less.” As for the meeting with Henry Nakamura, Goldie had, over the past twenty-four hours, showed a single-minded indifference to that subject. She hadn't even cared about the ruined Armani suit, reacting to the sight of it with a sigh and a roll of the eyes. “That's why I pack plenty of clothes,” she had grumbled, before stuffing it in the trash.

Even when Anna described Henry's gracious insistence that she keep the portfolio, Goldie's attention remained entirely focused on her granddaughter. “What's the good of having all this valuable art,” she demanded, “if you don't know what you're doing with your life, or where you would put it?” It was dawning on Anna that returning the portfolio to the Nakamuras had been less important to Goldie than finding an excuse to get her granddaughter out of Memphis. Now, after more than two weeks on the road, Goldie considered the effort a failure. Anna had not made any decisions at all.

Of course, Anna could have helped relieve the stress with some confident promises: “I'm moving to New York! I'll become a painter! I'll get my teaching certificate!” She could even have simply announced, “I feel so much better now!” which, though perhaps a minimal consolation, would have amounted to something. Anna was Goldie's granddaughter, however, so she was stubborn, too. “It's not as clear as that,” she said. “You can't solve every problem in two weeks.”

“I'm not talking about every problem. Someone asks you, ‘Where do you want to live?' and you can't even answer.”

“You've got to trust me,” Anna said. She felt disappointed that Goldie showed so little interest in Henry. If Anna could have described the encounter to her grandmother, then perhaps she could also have explained that she did, in fact, feel better. She had no clearer idea about the future than before, but she had become much happier over the past few weeks.
Something good,
she told herself,
might happen today
. That counted, too, but Goldie didn't seem interested in hearing it.

“Do whatever you want,” Goldie had said. “I did my best. I'm giving up.”

Now, as they pulled up in front of the terminal, a tall, broad-shouldered woman in a bright green Travcoa jacket stood on the curb with a clipboard in her hand. The sight of a Rolls-Royce must have indicated the arrival of one of her clients, because she took a step closer when she saw them. “I like that,” Goldie said. “They are a very reliable company.” She lifted her hand and fluttered her fingers. As the car stopped, the woman opened Goldie's door.

“Good morning!” she chirped.

“I'm Mrs. Rosenthal.”

“I'm Heidi, Mrs. Rosenthal. It's great to meet you.” Heidi held out a big hand to help Goldie get out of the car, but Goldie refused to take it. “I have to do these things myself, Heidi.”

Anna jumped out of the car and hurried around to the other side. She and Heidi stood watching as Goldie put both legs on the ground, gripped the handle on the inside of the door, and pulled herself up. “I'm her granddaughter,” Anna said.

Heidi shook her hand. “Don't worry about a thing. It's going to be a fabulous trip. Dubai is unbelievable.”

Goldie was standing, balanced now, next to the car. “They say it's one of the Wonders of the World,” she announced, breathing a little more heavily from the exertion of extracting herself from the car. “You can't miss it.”

“Let's get your things,” Heidi said, gesturing toward someone they couldn't see inside the building. Anna opened the trunk, and within seconds a porter had appeared and Goldie's suitcases lay piled on a luggage cart on the curb. Ever since they left New York, Anna had anticipated this moment with a sense of approaching relief. Goldie and her luggage would be someone else's responsibility now. Tonight, she told herself, she'd take the bus to the Mission, eat a burrito, maybe go to the movies. If she didn't get back to the hotel until after midnight, no one would care. No one risked falling into a suitcase. No one would get up at 7
A.M
. and bombard her with comments about the weather. By 7
A.M
. tomorrow morning, Goldie would be stretched out in business class somewhere over Asia, a satin sleep mask pulled over her eyes.

Anna moved closer to Goldie. “Are you sure you don't want me to come inside with you? I could make sure you get checked in.”

Goldie had been digging through her purse, double-checking for her passport. “Are you insane? Heidi—that's your name, right?” Heidi nodded. “She's going to help me now. She knows more about this than you do.”

Anna reached deep inside herself, searching for the fortitude that had helped her survive with Goldie over the past two weeks. If they had to say good-bye to each other under this cloud of aggravation, then there was nothing Anna could do to change that. “Well then,” she said, “I guess I'll be going.”

Goldie looked up then, and Anna saw, for what might have been the first time in her life, a surge of remorse cross her grandmother's face. In the flash of an instant, regret, sorrow, affection, and all the mixed-up feelings that one frustrated and addled eighty-five-year-old mind could produce overtook whatever front Goldie tried to project. She put her purse under her arm, then reached out and took her granddaughter's hand. “You have no idea, darling, how much I'm going to miss you,” she said.

It seemed to Anna then that every emotion she had ever experienced in regard to Goldie—the childhood adoration, the resentment and fury over Ford, the frustration and amusement and tenderness she had lived with ever since they left New York—all collided into one great storm of feeling. “Saying good-bye is sort of awful,” she told Goldie.

“Darling.” Goldie's expression became firm and focused now. “You need to get on with your life. You don't need to have your old grandmother dragging you around.” She swung their hands a little, as if they were two playmates at recess. “I'm sorry I didn't do better, setting you on the right track. But we had fun, didn't we?”

Anna nodded. She didn't want to cry.

“Give me a kiss.” Anna leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then put her arms around her. Goldie seemed so tiny now. “Remember, your grandmother loves you.”

“I remember. I love you, too.”

“Give yourself a happy life, all right?” Goldie had her hand on Anna's back.

“Okay.”

“I gave myself a happy life. The happiest life imaginable. Do that for yourself, all right?”

“I will,” Anna said.

They stepped back and looked at each other. “You're a beautiful girl, a gorgeous girl.” Then Goldie slid her hands down her sides, smoothing down her sweater. She looked at Heidi and said, “I'm ready now.”

 

Anna heard the first few notes of “Mack the Knife” just as she was steering the car away from the drop-off lane in front of the terminal. Realizing then that Goldie had left her cell phone on the seat, she said, “Shit,” fumbled around to find the phone, then opened it with her lower lip. “Hold on,” she barked, then dropped it back onto the cushion. She had been driving Bridget for weeks, and she now maneuvered the Rolls with such confidence that she could have been zipping around in a Mini. Still, airports present their own complex challenges of lanes and exits. Anna squinted to read the signs up ahead and figure out how to loop back to the terminal to find parking. “Just a second,” she yelled toward the person on the phone.

Eventually she saw a sign that pointed her onto a ramp for short-term parking. Bridget dipped down out of the sunlight and into the dim maze of the garage. Anna paused to pull a ticket from the machine, then slid up the ramp into the darkness before picking the phone up off the seat. “Sorry about that. Hello?” She held it to her ear and, following the arrows leading her through the lot, found herself hoping that the caller was Naveen.

It was Sadie. “Where's Nana?” she asked.

“I dropped her off, but she left her phone, and I'm about to run back in and give it to her. Didn't you say good-bye already?”

“Yes,” said Sadie, “but I'm at Ikea. I need her opinion about the color of a lamp.”

“I'm driving. Call her in a little while, okay?” Anna snapped the phone shut and, still holding it in her hand, wound her way through the garage. Finally, on the far side, she found a parking place big enough to accommodate a Rolls-Royce and pulled in.

Anna glanced at her watch. Even though it was nearly three hours before Goldie's flight, her tour group could line up for security at any time. Anna knew she should hurry, but the phone in her hand held her back. She remembered what Henry Nakamura had said about becoming determined, and she remembered Goldie's advice: make your own party. Anna opened the clamshell, scrolled through
RECEIVED CALLS
until she found an unfamiliar area code that she decided was Indiana, and without another thought, called Naveen.

He answered after only a couple of rings. “Hello?”

“It's Anna. Did I catch you working? Can you talk?”

“It's okay,” he said, but he didn't sound friendly. Now it was her turn to worry that he might hang up. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he asked, “Is your grandmother all right?”

“She's fine. I dropped her off at the terminal a minute ago, and then I discovered that she left her phone in the car. I have to run inside and find her.” The nervousness in her voice sounded so obvious. Did he hear it?

“What time is her flight?”

“Two-thirty.”

He seemed to be calculating in his head. “She gives herself plenty of time.”

They were both silent for a moment. Finally, Anna said, “I'm going to have to find my way through this parking garage while we talk. She's the type to race straight to the gate.”

He still said nothing.

She picked up her bag, got out of the car, and locked the door, then followed a green line on the floor that promised to lead toward the international terminal. “I'm underground. I might disappear.”

He said, “I'm prepared for you disappearing.”

Anna let that one pass. She walked around a bank of elevators and crossed a couple of rows of cars on the other side. “So,” she said, “how are you doing?”

“Why did you call?”

“To give you the recipe for the maharani's meatballs?”

He didn't laugh. He didn't say anything.

“I just needed to tell you something.” The green line led in a zigzag route up a set of stairs, out onto another parking area, then across the building. She felt like a child traipsing through a fun house. “I'm sorry I hung up on you, but I wanted things to be simple,” she said. “I didn't want to suffer.”

Naveen was silent. Anna asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

She skirted around a family loading a mountain of suitcases into a tiny van. She had made her apology to Naveen; she could hang up and be done with it, but she remembered Henry in the desert, watching dirt slip through his fingers, and she remembered that her life, too, was slipping by. “I'm just saying, you know, that that was my first time, for anything, after so much bad stuff happened. I wanted things to be clear and easy, so I liked the idea of a one-night stand.” And then, mustering the remainder of her courage, she said, “The whole experience, though, turned out to be less clear than I'd expected, and less easy, because I like you too much. So I've realized that, one way or another, I'm going to suffer. I might as well call and get to hear your voice again.”

When he still said nothing, she grew worried. “Are you mad? Did I lose you?”

“No.” The single syllable sounded gentler this time, and then he asked, “Did you ever have a one-night stand before you spent the night with me?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “Actually, no.”

“You seem to have this idea about one-night stands. But that wasn't a one-night stand. For one thing, people don't talk like that.”

“I guess you're right.” She had stepped onto a moving sidewalk that led through a long tunnel decorated by a neon cityscape of San Francisco. A group of Asian teenagers—slick haired and full of bluster—moved past in the other direction, chattering together in a language that she couldn't understand.

“I'm just saying I liked it.”

Anna remembered his description of her in the hospital waiting room that first morning, sleeping with piles of discarded sketches all around her. “Did I seem kind of crazy then?”

“No,” he said.

She came to the end of the sidewalk, looked at her watch, and saw that it was nearly noon. “Now I'm scared I'll miss my grandmother.” Up at the top of the escalator, she could see the bright sunlight flooding the terminal, and she thought of Goldie, moving toward the airplane without her cell phone. “Do you think she's really okay, traveling like this, after her injury?”

“She's fine.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“It seems to me that she understands the risks quite clearly. Something could go wrong in New York or Florida, too. She knows that the worst could happen, and she's prepared for that.”

“But in Dubai she's really all alone.”