Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (7 page)

H
enry headed down a paint-chipped stairwell, through a thick wooden door that opened on creaking hinges. The door spilt into a large expanse of subbasement beneath the old hotel itself. The only illumination came from a handful of utility bulbs, hung like Christmas tree lights along the ceiling by large staples; a long tail of bright orange extension cord led the way.

Stepping inside, Henry drew several deep breaths, feeling a chest-pressing wave of claustrophobia. The underground storeroom was packed. He could hardly comprehend the quantity of personal items stored here. A narrow path, shoulder-wide, wound through a forest of crates, suitcases, and steamer trunks stacked as high as the ceiling, many rows deep. Some yellow. Some blue. Large and small. A thin veneer of dust coated everything. The belongings had been here untouched for decades.

On first impression, the room looked like a secondhand store. There was an old Luxus bicycle, the kind Henry wished he’d had as a child. There were large metal buckets, filled with rolls of paper and what appeared to be art prints. A 1941 Sears, Roebuck order form jutted out from a box beside an old issue of
Physical Culture
magazine. A finely carved marble chess set was piled up in a wooden rice bowl.

Aside from the parasol that was brought up the first day, nothing looked even remotely familiar, but then he couldn’t be sure if the bamboo umbrella had been Keiko’s or not. He’d seen it only in an old black-and-white photograph of her as a child, what, forty years ago? Yet, as much as he tried to dismiss it as sheer coincidence, his heart told him otherwise. It was hers. Her family’s possessions were here. Some of the things most precious to her were here. And he would find them. What was left of them, anyway.

Henry eased down a small suitcase, popped the rusty clasps, and opened it, feeling like an intruder in someone’s home. In the leather case was a shaving kit, an ancient bottle of Farnesiana cologne, and a rat’s nest of old silk neckties. The name on the inside of the suitcase read ‘F. Arakawa.’ Whoever
he
was.

The next suitcase, a large leather number with a clear Lucite handle, practically fell apart as Henry opened it. The fabric was damp and moldy from decades of humidity. Upon closer inspection, Henry saw it for what it was. The beaded pearls. Silk-covered buttons. Lifting it out of the suitcase, he could see the gauzy white fabric was someone’s wedding dress. Inside were a matching pair of white pumps and a lace garter. In a small hatbox, tucked beneath the dress, was a
dried wedding bouquet, brittle and delicate. There were no photos or other identification in the suitcase.

Next Henry hauled down an old Wenatchee Valley apple crate overflowing with baby things. Bronzed shoes on a plaque, with the name Yuki engraved on the base. Tucked beside the crate were a tiny pair of red galoshes. Mixed in were a few things of more than personal value – silver rattles, a silver tea set, the American kind, plus a rolled up set of
gold-plated
flatware. Beneath the forks and spoons was a photo album. Henry sat on a leather stool and opened the dusty binder in his lap. There were photos of a Japanese family he didn’t recognize – parents, small children, many taken in and around South Seattle, even photos of them swimming at Alki Beach. Everyone in the photos looked so serious. As Henry leafed through the album, he saw that there were blank spaces. Sometimes entire pages were empty. More than half the photos were gone. They’d been removed, leaving behind white squares where the hidden page had been preserved from yellowing in the wet Seattle air.

Henry hesitated, then pressed his nose to the page, inhaling. He thought he had imagined the smell at first, then he inhaled again. He was right the first time – the pages smelt like smoke. 

H
enry woke the next morning to the delightful smell of
siu beng,
baked sesame buns – a breakfast favorite of his father’s and a real treat since sugar coupons were in short supply. At the table his father sat dressed in his finest suit, actually, his only suit. He’d had the dark gray number
custom-made
by a tailor who’d just moved here from Hong Kong.

Henry sat and listened to his father read from the daily newspaper, citing each new arrest of Japanese locals. All of them now bound for federal prison. Henry didn’t understand. They were taking schoolteachers and businessmen. Doctors and fishmongers. The arrests seemed random, and the charges were vague. His father sounded satisfied – small battles won in a larger conflict.

Henry blew on his honey-brown sesame bun, right from the oven, cooling it as best he could. He watched his father, who seemed engrossed in an article, wondering about Keiko
and the arrests at the Black Elks Club. His father turned to show the story to Henry – all Henry could tell was that it was written in Chinese, a message from the Bing Kung Benevolent Association; their
chop
, a stamp of their name, was evident at the bottom.

‘This is
important news
for us, Henry,’ his father explained in Cantonese.

Henry finally took a bite and nodded, listening and chewing.

‘Do you know what an executive order is?’

Henry had a vague idea, but, forbidden to answer in his father’s native tongue, he simply shook his head no. But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?

‘It’s a very important declaration. Like when Sun Yat-sen proclaimed January 1
^st
, 1912, as the first day of the first year of the Republic of China.’

Henry had heard his father speak of the Republic of China on many occasions, even though his father hadn’t set foot on Chinese soil since he was a young man. It had been years, back when he was Henry’s age and he’d been sent to finish his Chinese schooling in Canton.

Father also spoke in reverent, worshipful tones of the late Dr Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary who brought about
a
government of the people
. Henry fancied the name: Dr Sun. It sounded like someone Superman would do battle with.

His father had devoted most of his life to nationalist causes, all aimed at furthering the Three People’s Principles proclaimed by the late Chinese president. So naturally, as Henry slowly grasped the point of his father’s enthusiasm in these small local conflicts with Japanese Americans, it was mixed with a fair amount of confusion and contradiction.
Father believed in a government of
the people
but was wary of who those people were.

‘President Roosevelt just signed
Executive Order 9102
– which creates the War Relocation Authority. This is in addition to
Executive Order 9066
– which gives the United States power to designate new military areas.’

Like a new base or army fort, Henry thought, looking at the clock to make sure he wouldn’t be late to school.

‘Henry, the
entire West Coast
has been designated as a military area.’ Henry listened, not understanding what this meant. ‘Half of Washington, half of Oregon, and most of California are now under military supervision.’

‘Why?’ Henry asked, in English.

His father must have understood the word, or maybe he just felt like Henry should know. ‘It says: “I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders,”’ – Henry’s father paused, doing his best to read it correctly in Cantonese – ‘“to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War may impose in his discretion.”’

Henry gulped down the last bite of his sesame bun; the executive order might have been in German for all he cared. The war was everywhere. He’d grown up with it. The presidential memorandum didn’t seem out of the ordinary.

‘They can exclude anyone. They can exclude us. Or German immigrants.’ His father looked at Henry, setting the letter down. ‘
Or the Japanese.
’

That last part worried Henry – about Keiko, and her family. He looked out the window, barely noticing his mother. She’d come in with a pair of kitchen shears and cut the stem off the starfire lily he’d bought for her days ago, placing it back in its vase on their tiny kitchen table.

‘They can’t take them
all
away. What would happen to the strawberry farms on Vashon Island and the sawmill on Bainbridge? What about the fishermen?’ she said. Henry listened to their conversation in Cantonese as if it were coming from a distant radio station.

‘Hah? Plenty of Chinese workers – plenty of colored workers. They so short on labor even Boeing hiring Chinese now. Todd Shipyards is hiring and paying the same wage as Caucasian,’ his father said, smiling.

Henry grabbed his book bag and headed for the door, wondering what might happen to Keiko if her father was arrested. He didn’t even know what her father did to earn a living, but it didn’t really matter now.

‘Henry, you forgetting your lunch?’ his mother said.

He told her he wasn’t hungry, in English. She looked at Henry’s father, puzzled. She didn’t understand. Neither of them did.

Henry walked past the corner on South Jackson; it was quiet and empty without Sheldon there to send him off. Henry was happy that his friend had found a job up the street, but having Sheldon around was like an insurance policy. No bully who followed Henry home made it past Sheldon’s corner and his protective eye.

In class that day, Mrs Walker told everyone that their
classmate Will Whitworth would be gone for the rest of the week. His father had been killed while serving onboard the USS
Marblehead
. Japanese dive-bombers struck his convoy near Borneo in the Makassar Strait. Henry didn’t know where that was, but it sounded like someplace warm, tropical, and far away – he wished he was there as he felt the eyes of his classmates drill into him, tiny, piercing darts of accusation.

Henry had had only one run-in with Will, and it was earlier in the year. Will seemed to fancy himself a war hero, doing his part to fight the yellow menace on the home front, even if it was only on the playground after school. Despite the black eye Will had given him, Henry genuinely felt sorry for him when he heard this news. How could he not? Fathers weren’t perfect, but even a bad one seemed better than no father at all – at least in Henry’s case.

When lunchtime mercifully approached, Henry was excused. He ran, then walked, then ran again, down the hall and into the cafeteria kitchen.

Keiko wasn’t there.

Instead, Denny Brown, one of Chaz’s friends, stood there wearing a white apron, ladle in hand. He sneered at Henry like a rat caught in a trap. ‘What are you looking at?’

Mrs Beatty stomped around the kitchen – patting herself, trying to find where she’d left her matches. ‘Henry, this is Denny. He’ll be subbing for Kay-Ko. He got caught stealing from the school store. So Vice Principal Silverwood wants me to put him to work.’ Henry watched, mortified. Keiko was gone. His kitchen haven was now occupied by one of his tormentors. Mrs Beatty called off her search for a pack of matches and lit her cigarette on the stove’s pilot light, then grumbled
something about
staying out of trouble
as she wandered off to eat her lunch.

At first, Henry had to listen to Denny grumble about being caught, getting kicked off flag duty and cornered into working in the kitchen – forced to do the work of a Japanese girl. But when the lunch bell rang and hungry kids rolled in, Denny’s attitude changed as they smiled and chatted him up. They all wanted him to serve them, holding back their trays, leering suspiciously at Henry as they passed.

To
them
, Henry thought, we’re at war and
I’m the enemy.

He didn’t wait for Mrs Beatty to get back. He set his scoop down, removed his apron, and walked away. He didn’t even return to his classroom. He left his books, and his homework, passing down the hall and out the front door.

In the distance – in the direction of Nihonmachi, he noticed small plumes of smoke disappearing in the gray afternoon sky.

R
unning toward the smoke, Henry avoided Chinatown altogether. Not because he was afraid of being seen by his parents during school hours, though that
was
part of it, but because of the truant officers. It was almost impossible to skip school where Henry was from. Truant officers patrolled the streets and parks, even small noodle factories and canneries, looking for migrant children whose parents often sent them to work full-time rather than to school. The families probably needed the extra money, but locals like Henry’s father believed that educated children meant less crime. Maybe they were right. The International District was normally quite peaceful, aside from occasional gang violence by rival tongs, or by enlisted men who wandered in, then staggered out, drunk and ripe for trouble. Plus, any police officer seeing an Asian kid on the street during school hours would usually pick him up as well. He’d be sent home, where the poor kid’s punishment by
his parents would probably make him regret not being thrown in jail.

So Henry cautiously edged his way along Yesler Way, on the Nihonmachi side, all the way to Kobe Park, which was now deserted. Walking through the corridors of Japantown, he saw few people out. Like a Sunday morning in downtown Seattle, when all the shops and businesses were closed, and those that were open had few patrons.

What am I doing here? he asked himself, looking up from the barren streets to the cold sky, plumes of black smoke snaking skyward from places unseen. I’ll never find her. Still, he kept busy wandering from building to building. Avoiding the strange looks on the faces of the few men and women who passed him.

In the heart of Japantown, Henry found the Ochi Photography Studio once again. He couldn’t miss the young proprietor, who stood outside on a milk crate looking through a large camera mounted on a wooden tripod. He was shooting in an alley that ran in the same direction as Maynard Avenue, where Henry saw the source of the fires. They weren’t Japanese homes or businesses, as he’d feared. They were large burning barrels and garbage cans set ablaze in the alley, fire and smoke pluming up and over the apartment buildings on either side.

‘Why are you taking a picture of garbage fires?’ Henry asked, not sure if the photographer even recognized him.

The man looked through Henry. Then his eyes blinked as he seemed to remember him. It must have been the button Henry wore. The photographer turned back to his camera, his hands shaking. ‘They’re not burning garbage.’

Henry stood at the T where the alley met the street, next
to the photographer on his milk crate with his camera and his flashbulbs. Looking down the alley, he could see people coming and going from the apartment buildings, throwing things into the burning barrels. A woman yelled out of a
third-story
window to a man below and threw down a plum-colored kimono that looped and swirled, settling like falling snow on the dirty, slug-trailed pavement of the alley. The man below scooped it up, regarded it for a moment, hesitated, then threw it on the fire. The silky fabric lit, and burning pieces floated out of the heat like butterflies whose wings caught flame, fluttering on the draft, flickering out and raining down as black, ashy dust.

An old woman brushed by Henry with an armload of papers, throwing them into the fire, where they made a whooshing sound. Henry felt the rush of heat on his cheeks and stepped back. Even from a distance, he could see they were scrolls – artwork, written and drawn by hand. Large Japanese characters disappearing into the heart of the fire.

‘Why are they doing this?’ Henry asked, not fully understanding what he was seeing with his own eyes.

‘They arrested more people last night. Japanese, all over the city. All over Puget Sound. All over the state, maybe,’ the photographer told him. ‘People are getting rid of anything that might connect them to the war with Japan. Letters from Nippon. Clothing. It all must go. Too dangerous to keep. Even old photos. People are burning photos of their parents, of their families.’

Henry watched an old man wearily place a neatly folded Japanese flag into the nearest burning barrel, saluting it as it burnt.

The photographer snapped the shutter on his camera, capturing the scene.

‘I burnt all
my
old photos last night.’ He turned to Henry, the tripod shaking as he held it. With his other hand he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘I burnt my own wedding photos.’

Henry’s eyes stung as they filled with smoke and soot. He heard a woman yelling something in Japanese, somewhere in the distance. It sounded more like crying.

‘We had a traditional wedding right here in Nihonmachi. Then we took our photos at the Washington Park Arboretum in front of the magnolias and rockroses. We wore kimonos – Shinto dressing that had been in my family for three generations.’ The photographer looked haunted by the scene in front of him. Haunted by the destruction of touchable, tangible reminders of life.

‘I burnt it all.’

Henry had seen all he could take. Turning, he ran home, still tasting the smoke.