All Good Women (7 page)

Chapter Six

Summer 1941, San Francisco

GERMANS INVADE USSR

AMERICANS FREEZE JAPANESE ASSETS

ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL PROCLAIM
ATLANTIC CHARTER

TEDDY LAY BACK ON
THE
couch
drinking a beer and enjoying the warm Sunday afternoon. The house had lasted two years, she mused, no reason it would ever have to end. Hot and dry, she had spent the afternoon vacuuming and was content to deserve her beer, listening to the sounds of the three other women. Wanda's radio murmured ‘Fibber McGee and Molly' through the floorboards. Ann sang in the kitchen, stopping in mid phrase, probably to check the lasagne ingredients and then resuming, ‘I'm in the mood for …', partial, still, to the Glenn Miller arrangements. From the yard below, Teddy could hear the irregular chomp-clip-chomp of the shears. She restrained herself from rushing aid to Moira who would prune her thumb as likely as the ivy.

Teddy stretched the length of the elephant couch and wondered if she had ever felt this happy. Maybe there had been times when she was very young in Fortun, before the depression dried their hopes into old bones, before Amanda got polio and Pop, spent in a craziness about how to manage bills, decided there was bound to be magic in San Francisco. Yes, they had some grand times in Fortun, like that blackberry summer when she thought she might turn into a pie or that autumn the whole family rode in the truck to Oklahoma City to celebrate Mom and Pop's twentieth anniversary. Mom still had a glow to her cheeks then. And Pop walked with a swagger, no hint of the flab of more recent years. But Teddy remembered that by the time she was thirteen the family was cracking from high debts and short tempers. San Francisco seemed the only direction — perhaps because it was on the edge.

Sometimes Teddy reckoned she could recall every hour of that long cross-country journey. She liked to run it through in sequence, like still photographs, like a prayer. She closed her eyes now and saw the dry, gold grass growing flat against wide, blue skies. As they drove west towards Texas, the soil became redder. Tumbleweed lazed across the road. She saw signs for ‘Ho-Made Food' and ‘Cheap Lodging', but the Fieldings camped out the whole way and what had begun as an adventure turned into hardship even for the younger children. There were more hills as you got to Texas. Hank wanted to visit Dallas and Houston, however they were slicing quickly across the panhandle, driving straight into the sunset every night. Teddy's favorite state was New Mexico, with its wide, open starkness. The colors were more gentle there and the contours more dramatic, mountains like points chiselled into the sky. Sante Fe was a pretty town built around a square where traders sold their goods. So high up, Teddy could hardly breathe sometimes. Mom was interested in the Navajos and Hopis, who seemed different from the Cherokees in Oklahoma. She even convinced her husband to stop at the Hubble Trading Post, but they couldn't afford any of the bright rugs or bracelets. Teddy made a resolution to take Mom back one day. In Arizona, Teddy imagined the green hills curling inward, like bears snuggling at night. Pop refused to take them to the Grand Canyon, but they met travellers who told stories about the huge natural carvings miles down into the earth. What Teddy remembered most about Arizona was the desert, the dry heat and the thousands of cacti poking through the dust. California was surprising at first. She had anticipated sun and ocean immediately; instead they drove for miles through a relentless fog until they spotted the orange groves and grape vines of the San Joaquin Valley. ‘California,' Hank shouted, as if he were a gold panner. ‘Eureka.'

Being an Okie in San Francisco was worse than being a sharecropper's daughter in Fortun. At least in Oklahoma
everyone
was eating dust and, if you had to swallow more than the neighbors, it wasn't your fault. In California, Okie meant parasite, meant vagabond tramp, meant funny accent and queer clothes. First it hit Pop's pride, then his nerve. He had no steady job for months. Had to watch Mom take in laundry and Hank and Arthur forget school for construction work. Compared to some, their family was blessed. When Pop's friend finally got him a spot in the shipyard, Pop was accustomed to days spent half time at the bar and half time in bed. Now Teddy wondered how he sobered up for shifts. But he did. What with all of them pitching in some way, there was enough to go around.

Teddy took another swig of beer, parched just remembering her housecleaning schedule after high school classes. But Mom insisted on school — almost pushed her — because one of her kids was going to graduate. Teddy had astonished both of them by winning the church scholarship. Now she felt she had used it well, really applying herself at Tracey and getting a decent job at the Emporium. She managed to send a little money home every week. Pop accepted it. ‘Just for the meantime, just till I'm back on my feet.' Hank had barked, ‘When Teddy has already filled your shoes?' Lucky for Hank, Pop was half way through his bottle because if he had been sober that would have been the last crack from the boy for a long while.

Teddy surveyed the living room and pondered just why she loved this house. It was more than a refuge from the crowd at home. She relished the evenness of life here, the way they were equally responsible for the rent and the cleaning and each other. Of course everyone had her little faults — Moira's temper, for instance, and Ann's sharpness — yet they seemed to balance each other, more than she had ever known in her family and more than she could imagine in a marriage. Marriage, she couldn't picture it — doing her ‘partner's' housework. Lunatic arrangement.

‘What are the choices, the alternatives?' Wanda asked. Angela Bertoli demanded. Ann sighed. Various options crossed Teddy's mind. Always she gave the same answer, ‘This house is one choice, for now.'

Upstairs, Wanda tried to concentrate
on her sewing and to follow the argument between Fibber and Molly, but all she could think about was Howard's story of the ‘Yellow Peril' letter and her mother's notions of returning to Japan. Mama's parents were failing now, and she worried about the war growing in the Pacific. Besides, she knew how proud Americans were and she did not want to be an enemy stranded here. Wanda didn't want to believe in war, however, she knew her mother was right. They who were being treated like threats, were themselves being terrorized! Everyone knew about the arson at Fukahara's orchard in Fresno last month. And the FBI were investigating Buddhist priests because the temples received money for Japan. Now Howard, himself, had got an anonymous letter. ‘We're watching you, Yellow Peril.' A warning? A joke? Howard shrugged it off, but Wanda was more cautious.

At the cannery, too, she felt strange. Orders had declined in the past two months. And last week a FBI agent phoned to say he would come for a ‘routine check' of the accounts. Since then, Wanda had hardly been able to sleep. All right, it would be rough here, but Mama was mad to talk about Japan. She was so Americanized that it would be worse for her there. And what about her children? Betty and Howard and herself were neither Japanese nor American now. Would she leave her children in ‘enemy hands'? Papa, predictably, would not consider leaving. Somehow his fierceness frightened Wanda more than her mother's determination. Rarely was there such a serious rift between her parents. Mama ruled the house while Papa supported them in his own idiosyncratic way. Wanda had never before seen them argue as they had last Sunday at supper.

‘Miné, I cannot imagine …'

‘Of course you cannot imagine,' Mama had scolded him. ‘Your imagination is spent on other things, like political injustice and talk of Emma Goldman. Workers' rights and birth control. See where it got her. Deported. Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to get deported.'

Papa nodded evenly.

Wanda wanted to jump in and defend Papa, for she knew it was Mama who had first told him about Emma Goldman and how she wrote to protest the execution of Kotoku in the Japanese Free Speech Trials of 1910. Perhaps as Papa's radical ideas had turned to idealism, Mama's had turned to cynicism. Wanda didn't know what to say. She found communication harder these days as she was forgetting her Japanese.

Wanda concentrated on the hem of the new blue print dress that she had bought to wear for Roy tonight. She enjoyed the simplicity of sewing and the direct reward of these even stitches. Mama had raised her to marry a good
Nisei
boy, to get a job and to make a contribution to the world. Not an easy mandate, but a mandate nonetheless, and for that she was grateful. Sometimes she felt she was walking a tightrope strung between conflicting interests. Well, she would try. The only times she was really nervous was when she turned around and saw Betty following on the tightrope, watching her closely.

Roy would like the navy shirtwaist. She thought the dress, with its white accents — like luminescent gulls sailing over a clear night sky — was the perfect combination of tailored and romantic. It highlighted her own contrasts, the shiny black hair and the warm, ivory complexion. I'm not vain, Wanda reflected, I just know my advantages. The question was, could Roy handle all this?

She pricked herself with the needle, and, sucking her finger, considered that another good question was did he want a wife? After all, he, himself, had big ideas of being a photographer, of travelling to Africa in search of animal faces. Deep down she believed that they would make a fine team, but he would have to discover that for himself. Lately she had seen more photographs by Dorothea Lange. That's what she wanted to do with journalism, tell social issues through people's lives. She would go to Mississippi and Alabama to interview the Negro people. And her special plan was that they would go back to Yokohama when things calmed down to do a story that would express the complexity of Japan. Last night in her diary, she had outlined their preparations. Language classes first, since neither of them spoke Japanese well enough. They would also study the geography and politics of the city. They would take gifts to Roy's grandparents and her own. They would … the diary had been crammed with plans lately. She used to chronicle the day's events, but work was so tense now that it was more relaxing to record plans. It seemed to help her sleep, too. Oh, there was lots of potential for her and Roy. That made the possibilities of failure all the more frightening. So she would play it day by day, stitch by stitch. She felt satisfied. Almost finished now. Yes, this dress would be perfect.

‘I'm in the mood for
… lasagne,' Ann laughed as she whipped the eggs. Lightly, as if you were whipping a soufflé, she remembered Miss Fargo's typing maxim. Why this ridiculous song? She liked Glenn Miller a thousand times better than Benny Goodman, so much more intelligent and subtle. But it would be more appropriate to sing ‘Don't Fence Me In'. If there was one thing Ann was
not
in the mood for, it was romance. Lasagne, let's see now, she scanned the recipe in Angela's neat hand. All Catholic girls wrote so precisely. What did Angela call this way of writing? Yes, yes, the ‘Palmer Method'. ‘Tomato sauce, noodles, ricotta, eggs, salt, pepper, ground beef, mozzarella, Parmesan, pan 9 by 13 inches.' At least this was a practice run. It had been her own bright idea to invite the parents for dinner next week,
her
clever notion to serve an exotic dish that would be foreign to all of them. So it was only fair that she be elected cook. Staring at the cheese and egg mixture, she had grievous doubts that this would emerge as edible. She turned to shred the mozzarella; the long, even sheets of pale yellow reassured her. The lasagne was delicious when Angela cooked it. And she had been good at following directions since childhood. In fact, she was confident she, too, would have perfected the Palmer Method of Penmanship if she had been accepted at the Catholic school where her father tried to enroll her — over Mama's protests — because it was good on academic discipline. Yes, she would have learned the Palmer Method if she hadn't been Jewish and left-handed. They were sorry, said Sister Agatha, who could smell past the rose in her name, but there was no more room in the first grade.

Ann enjoyed grating the Parmesan, watching the soft flakes fill the bowl, savoring the sharp, hardrock aroma escape from the grater. Very good at following directions … that's why she was flying through the Greek course. It was kind of Professor Watson to let her audit the classes, but she could see he was pleased to have a secretary who was interested in the curriculum. San Francisco State wasn't the most prestigious Greek faculty in the country, but she wasn't exactly ready for graduate work.

At least she was recovering from her jealousy of Daniel. For years her brother's courses at Stanford tormented her: history, English literature, calculus, French. She should never have taken him up on his invitation to visit the campus. It would have been easier to bear — him finishing college and going straight to law school — if she hadn't seen how elegant Stanford was. All those graceful Spanish buildings. The tall eucalyptus trees. The wonderful, large communal dining rooms. And his friends — boys from Long Island and Louisiana and Italy and Africa. Well, now she was making her own way, differently, more slowly. She would show Papa, who had dreamed she was going to business school so she could type in her brother's law office!

She hated this envy because she really loved Daniel. They had been natural allies — neutral in the war between their parents. Even though he was two years older, they often played together. They both hated leaving New York for California and they were buddies in this arid and overfragrant place, travelling to the zoo and the museums together on weekends. They also developed a mutual vigilance as Mama grew more quiet.

Papa said they were silly to miss New York. Who wouldn't prefer a nice, warm climate with beautiful palm trees and the Pacific Ocean. They were crazy. Soon they would forget the concrete land where people shoved and pushed and were always categorizing who you were and where you came from. California would be a new life for all of them. Mama would be happier. He promised they could move back to New York in five years if they still missed the damn place. When Ann and Daniel took him up on the bargain — Ann, aged fifteen and Daniel, seventeen — Papa said he was sorry they hadn't adjusted, but the family couldn't pull up its roots for such whim. Roots! Ann screamed. Papa thought they had roots here? Daniel tugged at her sleeve, come on, this is a waste of time. Ann wondered why she was the one who always got angry.