Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (14 page)

Then his eyes found the button on Chaz’s shirt. The one he had stolen from Henry. A trophy, pinned to his jacket like a merit badge of cruelty. More gold.

Henry curled his fists so tightly his fingernails cut tiny half crescents into the tender flesh of his palms. He punched Chaz as hard as he could, feeling the impact all the way into his shoulder. He was aiming for his nose but caught cheekbone instead. Before Henry could land another blow, the ground slammed into his back. His head hit the concrete, and all he saw were meaty fists raining down.

Defending himself the best he could, Henry reached up to grab Chaz and felt a sharp pain in his hand. Despite the blows to the side of Henry’s head, a piercing in his hand was the only pain he felt. The only pain that mattered.

As Henry rolled away from the punches, covering up, Chaz seemed to float up and off of him. The crowd had parted. No one appeared to care that a white kid was beating the snot out of a little Chinese boy. No one but Sheldon – who’d seen him and pulled the larger boy off him.

Chaz shrugged the black man away. ‘Get your dirty hands off of me!’ He brushed the dust off his shirt, looking embarrassed and humiliated – a tomcat dunked in an icy bath.
He eyed the crowd around him for a friendly face, but the few spectators who noticed rolled their eyes at the noisy troll that he’d become. ‘I forgot you were friends with this rice nigger,’ Chaz grunted, almost in tears. Skulking away, he added, ‘See you tomorrow, Henry. Next time you’ll get worse.’

‘You all right, kid?’ Sheldon asked.

Henry rolled to his side and sat up, wiping a small spot of blood from his nose with his sleeve. His eye felt puffy and would surely be purple tomorrow. He licked his teeth with his tongue, taking inventory. Nothing broken. Nothing missing.

He opened his hand and looked down at the button, the pin sticking in partway. Henry smiled and said in his best English, ‘Never felt better.’

Henry sprinted through the crowd, unnoticed in the chaos – searching for Keiko’s family, worried that his scuffle with Chaz may have blown his one chance to see her. He knew the direction they were headed, but inside the station, there would be any number of trains to board. He thought of the people from the Kau Kau restaurant. The ones who were caring for the belongings of that Japanese couple. He’d heard his mother mention others. Chinese families who took people in, hiding them – there had to be a chance.

With each step, he plotted how he would convince his parents. Would they take Keiko in? Their first thought was to protect themselves, then others in their own community. He’d have to make them understand, somehow. How could they not? Father was closed-minded, but knowing soldiers were herding thousands of people to an unknown destination, an unknown fate – this would change everything. How could they
sit back and do nothing when this many people were being taken away – when they could be next?

Henry ran past a mountain of luggage. Trunks, bags, and suitcases stacked almost as high as the roofs of the silvery buses that rolled by. Families were arguing about how much or how little they were allowed to bring. The excess found its way to the top of the ever-growing heap. Next to the mound was a truckload of confiscated radios. Giant Philco consoles and small Zenith portables with bent wave-magnet antennas were piled up in the back like discarded shoes. Across the street sat Union Station, a courtly looking mass of red brick, its thick iron awning held aloft by massive stretches of black chain anchored to the building. Above it sat an enormous clock face. Nine-fifteen. Time was slipping away.

From the steep marble steps of the station, Henry looked out over the swirling sea of people, clusters of families and loved ones trying desperately to stay together. The occasional lost child cried alone as soldiers marched by. The rest were packed like cattle; group by group they were being checked onto four large passenger trains – bound for where? Crystal City, Texas? Winnemucca, Nevada? So many rumors. The last one had them bound for an old Indian reservation.

Henry spotted the hat again. One of many, to be sure, but the walk, the gait, it looked like her father. Sprinting down the stairs to the ground floor, he half-expected a soldier to stop him, but too much was going on. Get them onboard. Make them leave. Now. That was all that mattered to those in uniform.

Henry shuffled around the grown-ups, some standing, others sitting on their luggage looking frightened and confused. A priest said a rosary with a young Japanese woman. Other
couples took photos of each other, smiling as best they could, before exchanging hugs and polite handshakes.

There he was.

‘Mr Okabe!’ Bruised and out of breath, Henry felt the side of his head start to hurt.

The defeated old gentleman who turned around had a wide mustache. Henry’s disappointment was punctuated by the ringing of a porter’s bell. For the first time all morning, Henry stopped searching the crowds and crumpled to his knees, staring at the dirty, tiled floor.
She’s gone, isn’t she
?

‘Henry?’

He turned, and there they were. Keiko and her family. Her little brother making airplane noises with his lips. They smiled, each wearing an identical hangtag that read ‘Family #10281.’ They seemed delighted to see a face that wasn’t going to the unknown place they were.

Henry scrambled to his feet. ‘I thought you’d left.’ He looked at Keiko, her family, not wanting them to go.

‘I brought this. Wear it, and they’ll let you walk out of here,’ he said and put the button he’d retrieved from Chaz into Keiko’s hand, pleading to Mr Okabe, ‘She can stay with us, or my aunt. I’ll find a place where she can stay. I’ll get more. I’ll go back and get more for all of you. You can have mine. Take it and I’ll go back and get more.’

Henry’s heart raced as he fumbled, trying to take his own button off.

Mr Okabe looked at his wife, then touched Henry’s shoulder. Henry saw the flicker of a chance in their eyes. Just a chance. Then he watched it slip away. They would go. Like the rest. They would go.

‘You just gave me hope, Henry.’ Mr Okabe shook Henry’s small hand and looked him in the eye. ‘And sometimes hope is enough to get you through anything.’

Henry let out a deep breath, his shoulders drooping as he gave up trying to remove his button.

‘Your cheek?’ Keiko’s mother asked.

‘It’s nothing,’ Henry said, remembering the scrapes and bruises from his scuffle.

Mr Okabe touched the hangtag dangling from his coat. ‘No matter what happens to us, Henry, we’re still Americans. And we need to be together – wherever they take us. But I’m proud of you. And I know your parents must be too.’

Henry choked on the thought and looked at Keiko, who had slipped her hand into his. It felt softer and warmer than he’d ever imagined. She touched Henry’s shirt, where his button was, the space above his heart. She smiled, with a sparkle in her eye. ‘Thank you. Can I keep this anyway?’ she asked, holding up the button he had given her.

Henry nodded. ‘Where are they taking you?’

Keiko’s father looked at the train that was nearly full. ‘We only know they’re taking us to a temporary relocation center – called Camp Harmony. It’s at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, about two hours to the south. From there … we don’t know, we haven’t been told. But the war can’t last forever.’

Henry wasn’t so sure. It was all he’d known growing up.

Keiko wrapped her arms around him and whispered in his ear, ‘I won’t forget you.’ She pinned the button reading ‘I am Chinese’ to the inside cover of her diary, holding it close.

‘I’ll be here.’

Henry watched them board the train, herded in with
dozens of other families. Soldiers with white gloves, batons in hand, blew whistles and pointed as the doors closed. Henry lingered at the edge of the boarding area, waving goodbye as they pulled away from the station, disappearing from sight. He wiped warm tears from his cheeks, his sadness diluted by the sea of families waiting for the next train. Hundreds of families. Thousands.

He avoided eye contact with the soldiers as he walked away, thinking about what he’d say to his parents, and which language to say it in. Maybe if he
spoke his American
, he wouldn’t have to say anything at all. 

H
enry walked upstream against the current of Japanese families that continued flowing toward Union Station. Almost everyone was on foot, some pushing handcarts or wheelbarrows weighed down with luggage. A few cars and trucks crept by with suitcases and bags tied to the hoods, the grilles, the roofs – any flat surface became ample cargo space as families loaded up their relatives and their belongings and drove off toward the army’s relocation center – Camp Harmony, Mr Okabe had called it.

Henry looked out at the endless ribbon of people. He didn’t know where else to go. He just wanted to walk away, wherever that was.

School was out of the question for the day. The thought of being tardy and facing the ridicule of his classmates was almost as horrible as the thought of enduring their happiness – their joy and satisfaction at knowing that Keiko’s family, and
her whole neighborhood, were being taken away. All smiles. Victorious in their home-front battle with a hated enemy. Even if that enemy spoke the same language and had said the Pledge of Allegiance alongside them since kindergarten.

Of course, deep down, Henry didn’t know if schools were open at the moment. The commotion downtown seemed to have created a holiday atmosphere – a monstrous,
carnival-like
celebration. A record player somewhere blared ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ – a harsh contrast to the Japanese melancholy and quiet sadness.

As Henry slipped away from the train station, the possibility of being caught by truant officers looking for schoolchildren cutting class seemed very small. There was too much going on, too many people crowding the streets. Businesses closed as office workers downtown stopped everything to watch the commotion. Those leaving. Those watching. And the soldiers on the streets all seemed to be consumed with the task at hand – herding groups of people with tags hanging from their coats. They barked commands for people to stay lined up, blew the occasional whistle to catch the attention of those who spoke little or no English.

Henry wandered away, finding himself drawn down Maynard Avenue to the edge of Nihonmachi. There he found Sheldon sitting on a bus bench, sipping black coffee from a thermos cup, his sax case tucked between his feet. He looked up at Henry, shaking his head as the remaining residents of Nihonmachi drifted away.

‘I’m sorry, Henry,’ Sheldon said, as he blew on his coffee to cool it down.

‘Not your fault,’ Henry offered, sitting next to his friend.

‘Sorry all the same. There was nothing you could’ve done. Nothing anyone could’ve done. They’ll be OK. The war will be over soon, they’ll be coming back, you wait.’

Henry couldn’t even bring himself to nod in agreement. ‘What if they send them back to Japan? Keiko doesn’t even speak Japanese. What’ll happen to her then? She’s more of an enemy there than she is here.’

Sheldon offered his coffee to Henry, who shook his head no. ‘I don’t know about all that, Henry. I can’t say. All I know is, all wars end. This’ll end. Then everything will be made right.’ Sheldon put the cap back on his thermos. ‘You want me to walk you to school?’

Henry stared at nothing.

‘Going home?’

‘I’ll go home later,’ Henry said, shaking his head.

Sheldon looked up the street, as if waiting for a bus that was late and might never arrive. ‘Then come with me.’

Henry didn’t even ask. He followed Sheldon down the center of Maynard Avenue, walking along the dotted white line into the heart of Japantown, a street littered with copies of Public Proclamation 1 and small paper American flags that stuck to the wet pavement. The streets were barren of people, the sidewalks too. Henry looked up and down the avenue – no cars or trucks anywhere. No bicycles. No paperboys. No fruit sellers or fish buyers. No flower carts or noodle stands. The streets were vacant, empty – the way he felt inside. There was no one left.

The army had removed the barricades from the streets, except those flowing in the direction of the train station. All the buildings were boarded up. The windows were covered
with plywood slabs, as if the residents had been waiting for a typhoon that had never arrived. Banners that read ‘I am an American’ still hung over the Sakoda Barber Shop and the Oriental Trading Company. Along with signs that read ‘Out of Business.’

The streets were so quiet Henry could hear the squawking seagulls flying overhead. He could hear the porters’ whistling from the train station, several blocks to the south. He could even hear his shoes squishing on the damp Seattle pavement, quickly drowned out by the rattle of an army jeep as it turned onto Maynard. He and Sheldon hopped to the sidewalk, looking at the soldiers as they drove by, staring back. For a moment Henry thought he might be rounded up, like the rest of Seattle’s Japanese citizens. He looked down and touched the button on his coat. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? He might be sent to the same camp as Keiko and her family. His mother would miss him, though, maybe even his father. The jeep drove past. The soldiers didn’t stop. Maybe they knew he was Chinese. Maybe they had more important things to do than round up a lost little kid and a black out-of-work sax player from South Jackson.

He and Sheldon walked all the way to the steps of the Nippon Kan Theater, across from Kobe Park and in the shadow of the Japanese-owned Astor Hotel, which stood silent like an empty coffin. The prettiest part of Japantown, even vacant as it was, looked beautiful in the afternoon. Cherry blossoms covered the sidewalks, and the streets smelt alive.

‘What are we doing here?’ Henry asked, as he watched Sheldon open his case and take out his saxophone.

Sheldon slipped his reed into the mouthpiece. ‘We’re living.’

Henry looked around the deserted streets, remembering the people, the actors, the dancers, the old men gossiping and playing cards. Children running and playing. Keiko sitting on the hillside drawing in her sketchbook. Laughing at Henry. Teasing him. The memories warmed him, just a little. Maybe there was life to be lived.

His ears perked up as Sheldon drew a deep breath, then began a slow wailing on his sax. A sad, melancholy affair, the kind Henry had never heard him play on the street or in the clubs. It was heartbreaking, but only for a moment. Then he slipped into something festive – something up-tempo, with a soul and a heartbeat. He played for no one, but at the same time Henry realized he was playing for everyone.

Henry waved goodbye, Sheldon still playing in the distance. Half-way home, he entered Chinatown. He was far from the soldiers at the train station, so he removed his button and put it in his pocket, not wanting to think about it.

Then he stopped and bought his mother another starfire lily.