Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (30 page)

details. Like what kinds of toys her father was making for her little brother. Or how difficult it was to sleep with the noisy old lady who snored and broke wind through the night, even though she herself never woke up. The time passed quickly. Never once did they mention missing each other or how they felt again. They were together, alone even, but they might as well have been standing up at the visitors' fence-- Henry on one side, Keiko on the other--separated by razor wire.

Stranger

(1942)

The ride home was more quiet than usual. Henry stared out the passenger window, watching the sun set one last time. Watching the farmland give way to the landscape of Boeing Field, its enormous buildings draped in camouflage netting--a feeble attempt to keep entire factories hidden from enemy bombers. Henry didn't say a word, and Mrs. Beatty, perhaps out of sympathy, didn't either. She just left him to his thoughts.

All of which were about Keiko.

With the last of the prisoners taken to camps farther inland, Camp Harmony would revert back to being the site of the Washington State Fair just in time for the fall harvest season. Henry wondered if anyone going to the fair this year would feel different walking through the trophy barn, admiring prized heads of cattle. He wondered if anyone would even remember that, two months earlier, entire families had been sleeping there.

Hundreds of them.

But what now? Keiko would be on her way to Minidoka, Idaho, in a few days. A smaller work camp somewhere in the mountains near the Oregon border, he presumed. It was closer than Crystal City, Texas, but still seemed like a world away.

Their good-bye had been a formal one. After he'd decided to let her go (for her own good, he reminded himself), he'd kept a polite distance, not wanting to make it any harder on either of them. She was his best friend. More than a friend, really. Much more.

The thought of her leaving was killing him, but the thought of telling her how he really felt and
then
watching her go, that was more than his small heart could manage.

Instead, he said good-bye with a wave and a smile. Not even a hug. She looked away, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. He'd done the best thing, right? His father had said once that the hardest choices in life aren't between what's right and what's wrong but between what's right and what's best. The best thing was to let her go. And Henry had done just that.

But his mind had filled with doubts.

To his surprise, no one had even noticed he was gone. Or if they had, they hadn't cared enough to say anything. The truth was, the residents of Camp Harmony would be leaving, and the camp workers, the soldiers, all just wanted to go back to their lives. They had done their duty and were ready to wash their hands of the whole ugly matter once and for all.

Mrs. Beatty was thoughtful enough to drop Henry off in Chinatown, a block from the apartment he shared with his family. She had never done that before.

"I guess that's that," she said. "Stay out of trouble this summer--and don't go changing schools on me now. I still expect to see you in the kitchen this fall, got it?" Mrs.

Beatty let the engine idle as she stubbed out a cigarette in a beanbag ashtray she kept on the dashboard for when the truck's ashtray got too full.

"I'll be careful. I hope you hear some news about your father. I'm sure he's doing okay," Henry said, thinking about Mrs. Beatty's father and the crew of the SS
City of
Flint
--merchant marines imprisoned somewhere in Germany, like Keiko and her family.

Mrs. Beatty smiled slightly, nodding. "Thank you, Henry. Mighty thoughtful of you. I'm sure he'll get by. You will too." She struggled to put the truck in gear, then regarded Henry once more. "And so will Keiko."

He watched her drive off, bumping along the potholed streets, her arm waving out the window. Then she rounded the corner and was gone. The streets were peaceful.

Henry listened for Sheldon playing over on Jackson but heard only the rumble of trucks, the squeal of brakes, and a dog barking in the distance.

He walked up the steps and down the hall to his apartment, the steamy smell of rice in the air. When he reached his home, the door was partially open and light spilled out. A shadow moved, the silhouette of an older man, but not that of his father.

Henry stepped inside. His mother was sitting at the kitchen table, sniffling into a handkerchief, her eyes red and her nose puffy from crying. Henry recognized the man immediately by the stethoscope that hung around his neck. Dr. Luke, one of the few Chinese doctors who had a practice on South King--and still made house calls. He'd once come by when Henry had "fallen off the swing" at school (a beating actually, courtesy of Chaz Preston) and had a concussion. Henry had thrown up and passed out, and his mother had immediately called the local doctor. But Henry had been fine, and his mother, despite the tears, looked reasonably well. This time, she looked scared, her body shaking.

That's when Henry knew.

"Henry--your mother was just talking about you. You look like you've grown since my last visit." Dr. Luke was being polite, speaking in Chinese, but nervous too.

What
isn't
he telling me? Henry thought.

Henry's mother left her chair and fell to her knees, hugging him so hard it hurt.

"What's the matter? Where's Father?" Henry asked, guessing the answer.

She propped herself up, wiping the tears from her eyes, and spoke in a positive tone that somehow didn't fit the news she was about to share. "Henry, your father's had a stroke. Do you know what that is?"

He shook his head no. Though he had some vague recollection of Old Man Wee in the fish market, who always talked funny and used only his right arm to weigh the day's catch.

"Henry, it's a very bad stroke," Dr. Luke said, putting his hands on Henry's small shoulders. "Your father is tough, and stubborn. I think he's going to pull through, but he's going to need rest--for at least a month. And he can barely talk. He might gain some of that back, but for right now, it's going to be difficult for all of us. Especially him."

The only words Henry heard were "he can barely talk." Father had barely said anything when he could, and in the last two months hadn't said a single word to Henry.

Not even a good night. Not a hello, or a good-bye.

"Is he going to die?" was all Henry could think of to ask, his voice cracking.

Dr. Luke shook his head, but Henry saw through to the truth. He looked at his mother, and she looked terrified, not saying a thing. What could she say?

"Why did this happen? ... How?" Henry asked his mother as well as Dr. Luke.

"These things just happen, Henry," Dr. Luke answered. "Your father gets worked up about so many things, and he's not a young man inside. He lived such a hard life back in China. It ages a body. And now so much worry, with the war ..."

A wave of guilt crashed over Henry. He was sinking beneath it. His mother took his hand. "Not your fault. Don't think this. Not your fault--his fault, understand?"

Henry nodded to make his mother feel better, but he was torn inside. He had so little in common with his father. He had never understood him. But still, he was the only father he had, the only one he would ever have.

"Can I see him?" Henry asked.

Henry watched his mother's eyes meet Dr. Luke's; the doctor paused, then nodded. At the door of his parents' room, Henry could smell Buddhist incense burning, along with some kind of cleaning solution. His mother turned on a small lamp in the corner. As Henry's eyes adjusted, he beheld his father, looking small and frail. He lay like a prisoner of his bed--the covers pulled up tight around his chest, which seemed to move in a jerky, uneven rhythm. His skin was pale, and one side of his face looked bloated, like it had been in a fight while the other side watched and did nothing. His arm lay at his side, palm up; a long tube connected at his wrist led to a bottle of clear fluid that hung from the bedpost.

"Go on, Henry; he can hear you," Dr. Luke said, prodding him forward.

Henry walked to the side of the bed, afraid that touching his father would injure him or push him closer to his ancestors.

"It's okay, Henry, I think he'd want to know you're here." His mother gently caressed his nervous shoulder, taking his hand and putting it in his father's frail, limp fingers. "Say something, let him know you're here."

Say something? What can I possibly say now? And in what language? Henry took the "I am Chinese" button off his shirt and set it on the nightstand near what he assumed to be his father's medicine. There were assorted brown glass bottles, some with labels in English while others, herbal concoctions, were labeled in Chinese.

Henry watched his father open his eyes, blinking twice. Henry couldn't tell what lurked behind that stricken, expressionless face. Still, he knew what he had to say.
"Deui
mh jyuh."
It meant, "I am unable to face," a formal apology when you're admitting guilt or fault. Henry felt his mother's hand on his face for a moment, a caress of comfort.

His father looked up at him, his mind straining to force his disobedient body into activity. Each movement of his mouth took incredible effort. Just breathing in and out enough to generate sound appeared nearly impossible. Still, his fingers gripped Henry's so slightly it was almost imperceptible. And a single phrase slipped out.
"Saang jan."

It meant "stranger." As in "You are a stranger to me."

Thirteen

(1942)

One month later Henry grew up, or so it felt. He turned thirteen, the age that many laborers had left China two generations earlier in search of Chinshan--the Gold Mountain, seeking their fortunes in America. It was the same age his father had been when he took a job as a laborer, the age Henry's father considered a boy to be a man. Or a girl to be a woman, for that matter, since arranged marriages often happened as early as thirteen--the age a girl's education typically ended--and only for those who could afford such arrangements.

Henry's birthday came and went with little fanfare. His mother made
gau
, a favorite dessert cake of glutinous sticky rice she normally reserved for special holidays like the lunar new year. His extended family of aunties and cousins came over for a dinner of black bean chicken and choy sum with oyster sauce--also favorites of Henry's.

His rich auntie King gave him a lai see envelope, filled with ten crisp one-dollar bills, more money than he'd ever received at one time. She gave Henry's mother one too; his mother gushed her appreciation but didn't open it. That was when Henry realized that Auntie King and her husband, Herb, were probably helping support Henry's family now that his father was bedridden.

Henry's father was confined to his bed or a wheelchair that his mother pushed around the apartment, positioning him next to the radio, or the window so he could get some fresh air once in a while. He said nothing to Henry but would whisper words to Henry's mother, who doted on him as best she could.

Occasionally, Henry would catch his father watching him, but when he'd make eye contact, his father would look away. He wanted to say something, feeling guilty for having disobeyed, for having caused his father's weakened condition. But in a way, he was his father's son, and he could be equally stubborn.

Keiko had been gone more than a month. She'd left on August 11 with the last of the prisoners of Camp Harmony, bound for Minidoka. And she'd never once written. Of course, no one could be sure what that
really
meant. Maybe there wasn't mail service up there. Or maybe Henry had been too clear with his good-bye and she was moving on without him. Forgetting him once and for all. Either way, he missed her so much it hurt.

Especially at school, when the fall semester started. Henry had two more years before he'd go to Garfield High, which he'd heard was far more integrated, and where most of the Chinese and black kids ended up going. A mixed-race class would be such a change from Rainier, where he was, once again, the only nonwhite student. He still worked in the kitchen at lunchtime with Mrs. Beatty, who never spoke of Keiko.

Henry rarely saw Chaz anymore. Since getting caught vandalizing homes in Nihonmachi, he had been kicked out of Rainier. Rumor had it he was now bullying kids at Bailey Gatzert, where all the blue-collar kids went. Occasionally Henry would see him shadowing his father around town, but that was it. He'd grin at Henry, but Henry wasn't afraid of him anymore. Chaz looked the way he'd look for the rest of his life, Henry thought, bitter and defeated. Henry, on the other hand still felt like he hadn't learned his best trick yet.

Still, Henry's work duties after school felt empty, and his walk home was a lonely affair. All he could do was think of Keiko, how happy he'd felt when she was around.

And how numb and sad he'd felt watching her wipe the tears from her eyes when he'd said good-bye. He didn't regret watching her go as much as he regretted not telling her how much he cared. How much she meant. His father was a horrible communicator.

After all the time he'd rebelled against his father's wishes and his father's ways, Henry hated the fact that he wasn't that different from him at all-- not where it mattered, anyway.