Bridge of Scarlet Leaves (10 page)

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Authors: Kristina McMorris

BOOK: Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
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“Whoa there, buddy!” the driver called out. “Uh-uh, no way. I ain’t driving no Jap.”
Lane became a statue, one leg in, one out.
“You heard me, pal!” The cabbie white-knuckled his steering wheel. Bystanders paused to observe the scene, pointing, not bothering to whisper.
“It’s okay,” Maddie assured the driver, “we’re getting out.” She scooted back toward Lane, who blocked her from rising.
“No,” he told her. “You go ahead.”
“But, Lane ...”
“I’ll take the next one.”
“Well—what if they won’t—”
“Then I’ll ride the bus.”
The driver’s steely look bounced off the rearview mirror. “You goin’ or not, lady? Make up your mind.”
Lane tenderly touched her chin. “Honey, don’t worry. I’ll swing by as soon as I can.” The surety in his tone caused her to relent. She made room for him to place her suitcase beside her. He had barely closed the door when the cabbie screeched away with the speed and power of fear.
Maddie strained to keep Lane in her view until the taxi veered around a corner. Grip on her luggage, she sat back in her seat.
Seven days,
she told herself as they rumbled down streets that now felt foreign. In seven days God had created the Earth. In a single day mankind had turned it upside down.
14
F
ree hand curled into a fist, TJ waited for the call to connect. Any more pacing and his shoes would leave a permanent groove in the floor. His ear felt feverish against the metal receiver. Behind him in the living room, a floor model radio delivered seeds of hysteria. The quiet of dusk amplified the man’s reports: mandated blackouts, potential sub sightings, a climbing toll of Navy casualties, a list of precautions to keep families safe.
At last came a buzzing on the line. Years lingered between each ring.
“Answer it,” TJ snapped.
Another ring ... and another ...
“Allisters.” It was one of Jo’s brothers, didn’t matter which. They all sounded alike.
“It’s TJ Kern. I was wondering—”
“
Who?”
The question competed with chaotic conversations in the background.
“TJ,” he repeated louder.
“You callin’ about the meeting?”
“Meeting?” TJ said, thrown off.
“The block meeting.” The guy sounded annoyed. “For standing guard at the beaches. We’re figuring out shifts. You wanna come, we’ll pick you up on the way.”
Jesus. Were enemies invading the coast? TJ had never even held a rifle before. Apparently it was time he learned.
“Uh, yeah. Okay.”
“Fine. See ya soon.”
Then TJ recalled his greater concern. “Wait, don’t hang up.”
A mumbled response trickled through, indiscernible amid the noise.
“I was looking for Maddie. I know she and Jo were supposed to be up north, visiting—”
“Hang on.” He yelled in a muffle, “Shut your traps, will ya?” The volume lowered half a notch. “Now, what’re you sayin’?”
TJ rubbed his thumb over the knuckle of his fist, bridling his own annoyance. “I was asking about Jo.”
“Hey, Jo! Phone’s for you!” TJ winced from the guy hollering into the mouthpiece. A rustling and a clunk followed.
As TJ waited, relief swept over him. Jo was back in town. That meant Maddie must have stopped over at the Allisters’ on the way home.
“Hello?”
“Jo. Thank God. Is Maddie still there?”
“TJ, is that you? Here, let me go in the other room.” More sounds of rustling with the handset and cord, then the chatter dimmed. “I swear, I can’t hear myself think in this place.”
No wonder she retreated to the ballpark to find some peace.
“I was just trying to find Maddie,” he said, “since I hadn’t heard from her yet.”
“Oh. I don’t know. She didn’t tell me what time she’d be home from her trip.”
“I—don’t understand. Didn’t you two travel together?”
“Together? No. Why’s that?”
He wasn’t in the mood for razzing, if that’s what this was. “To visit your cousins. In Sacramento.” The lengthy pause reinstated his panic. “Jo, where the hell’s my sister?”
He heard her exhale, at a loss. “I don’t know, TJ ... . I don’t know.”
“
I repeat,”
the broadcaster declared
, “we are in a state of emergency. Authorities recommend that everyone stay inside and tune in for further details.”
A state of emergency. The death count rising.
In a combustive flash, he saw his father on the hospital bed. His mother lay lifeless on a silver table so shiny he could make out his own reflection. The memory of rain pelted his eardrums, interrupted by the screech of brakes.
But that screech was real. A fresh sound. He turned to the window.
“TJ? You there?” Jo said.
Maddie was stepping out of a taxi in a coat and hat, yet relief had no chance of regaining its footing. “She’s here,” he said, and slammed the handset onto the cradle. The bell inside pinged.
TJ faced the door with arms crossed. Air labored through his nose. He was a bull preparing to charge.
She didn’t see him until she’d closed the door behind her and set down her case. Her demeanor shrank beneath his gaze.
“Where the
hell
have you been? And don’t you dare lie to me again.”
Flushing, she fumbled for a reply.
“There’s a goddamned war going on out there. You understand that? Got any idea what that means?”
She straightened, lifting her chin in feeble defiance. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Yeah? Then why don’t you prove it by telling me where you’ve
really
been.” He pressed her with a hard stare.
“I ... think we should discuss this later. When you’ve had a chance to calm down.”
The challenge to his temper only inflamed it more. “Well, that ain’t gonna happen for a while. So why don’t you start explaining yourself.”
She locked on his eyes and replied firmly. “You’re not my father, TJ.”
“You’re right. But maybe I shoulda been. I guarantee, then, you wouldn’t be traipsing all over the place with God-knows-who, doing—” An impossible sight cut through his words. A gold band gleamed from Maddie’s finger. Her wedding finger.
She wouldn’t ... couldn’t have. Yet the evidence was smack in front of him.
“You got married?” he breathed.
Her gaze fell to the ring. The answer was clear. What he didn’t understand was why. Why’d she run off and elope? Why’d she keep it from him? His mind seized the most obvious reason, and the air in his lungs turned to lead.
“Maddie, are you pregnant?”
Her forehead bunched. “Oh, God, no.” She gave an insistent shake of her head. “No, it’s nothing like that.” She reached for his arm, but he moved backward.
TJ wanted to feel grateful, but all he could think about was which asshole was responsible. Which one would trade a girl’s innocence for lustful kicks. Why else would a guy have persuaded her to sneak around? Anyone with good intentions would have been up-front, not treated her like a dirty secret. Like a mistress. Like a whore.
He muscled down the thoughts. Left to roam free they just might unlock the cage inside, setting loose the constant rage that prowled back and forth behind the bars.
A succession of honks summoned his face toward the window. The silhouette of a pickup appeared, its headlights off.
“Come on, Kern! Let’s move it!” Jo’s brothers, plus a few other neighbors, crammed the truck from cab to bed. The fading sunset outlined their rifles pointed straight at heaven.
TJ grabbed his jacket from the coat tree. With any luck, he could take his fury out on an enemy bomber orphaned from its flock.
“Where are you going?” Maddie asked as he headed for the door. “TJ ... ,” she pleaded.
In need of escape, he simply walked out.
15
F
rom the far corner of the lawn, Lane stared at the crime scene, his senses gone numb. No lights shone through the windows. By government order, darkness draped the city.
Men in black trench coats, black hats, even blacker eyes, swam in and out through the front door. They carried boxes off the small porch and down the driveway, loaded them into two old Packards with rear suicide doors.
FBI agents.
He recognized their type from the picture shows. That’s what this had to be—a movie set. It wasn’t real. At any moment, the word
Cut!
would boom from a director’s horn and Cecil B. DeMille would leap from the trimmed hedges.
“Sir, you’re gonna have to clear out.” The man approached him on the grass. His features were like Gary Cooper’s, but spread over an elongated face.
When Lane didn’t respond, the guy sighed, took another tack. “I can see you’re concerned about the family. But right now, they’re part of an investigation. So I gotta ask you to move on till we’re done. I know you people like your privacy, and I’m sure the Moritomos are no different.”
The mention of his surname—Moritomo, how did the fellow know that?—tore Lane from the surreal dimension of his hopes. There would be no intermission between reels, no velvet curtains or salted popcorn. Dramas crafted for the silver screen were morphing into the reality of his life.
“Listen, pal.” The agent planted a fist on his hip. “I’ve asked you nicely, but if you’re not gonna abide—”
“They’re mine.” Lane’s reply emerged with so little power he barely heard it himself. “The family in there is mine.”
The man studied him and licked his bottom lip. He nodded toward the house. “Well, then you’d better go in. Agent Walsh will have some questions for you.”
 
Lane scarcely registered the path he traveled that led him into the foyer. He was a driver after a weary day who had blinked and discovered he’d already reached his destination.
“
On
san!”
Emma came running. She latched onto his waist. Her little body trembled.
He set down his suitcase to rub the crown of her head. “What’s going on, Em? Where’s Papa?”
She peeked over her shoulder and pointed toward the kitchen. Her manner indicated that the monster trapped in her closet had found a way out. Lane knelt on the slate and clasped his sister’s hands. It dawned on him how rapidly she had grown. He once could cover her entire fist with his palm. “You go to your room while I figure out what’s happening, okay?”
“But those men, they keep going in there.”
“Your bedroom?”
She nodded with a frown. “They’re looking through all my stuff. They took Papa’s work books, and his radio, and his camera. Some of my Japanese tests too—even though I don’t care about that.” Then, cupping her mouth, she whispered, “I hid Sarah Mae so they couldn’t find her.”
He was about to assure her that the doll he’d given her two Christmases ago wouldn’t be in jeopardy. But who knew what they were looking for, or what other absurd belongings they would confiscate.
“Good thinking,” he told her. “Now, you just sit on the stairs here. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Reluctantly, she stepped back and sat on the middle step. She gripped the bars of the banister and watched him through a gap.
Lane paused while passing the parlor. Cushions of their empire couch had been slashed. Its stuffing poured out like foam. Scraps of papers dappled the rug. His father’s prized katana swords had been pillaged from the wall.
A man’s husky voice, presumably Agent Walsh’s, led Lane into the kitchen. An oil lamp on the table soaked the room in yellow.
“You’re not lying to me, are you, folks?” The guy, thick with a double chin and a round belly obscuring his belt, loomed over Lane’s parents, who sat stiff and humble in their chairs. He held up a small laughing Buddha statue. “’Cause I don’t want to wonder what else you might be hiding from me.”
“We telling the truth,” Lane’s father insisted politely, taking obvious care to pronounce his words. “We Christians. Not Buddhists. Christians. This only Hotei
-san.
”
“This is what?” Walsh said.
“Hotei,” Lane replied, turning them. “It’s a lucky charm. My mother brought it from Japan when they first moved here.”
“Uh-huh. And who might you be?”
“I’m their son.”
“Is that right,” Walsh said slowly, and glanced at Lane’s father. “I was told you were away at a university. How ’bout that, now?”
Lane fought to control his tone. If his dad possessed any trait, it was integrity. “My train just got in. With a war starting, I thought I should be with my family.”
“Sure, sure. I understand,” the agent said, as though not accusing. He returned to Lane’s mother in a gentle appeal. “Got a family of my own. Nice, pretty wife, two kids. Boy and girl, just like yours. So I know how it is, wanting to do everything I can to protect them. Which is the reason we need to ask all these questions.” He put the decoration on the coffee table and motioned at Lane. “Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.” The arrogance of his invitation, implying a staked claim on the house, bristled the tiny hairs on Lane’s neck.
Due to alien land laws, and Asian immigrants being barred from citizenship, his father could only lease the place. Although it was common practice, Lane hadn’t felt right about purchasing it in his own name to bypass the rules. He preferred to change the system and guide society’s evolution.
That system, however, was turning out more flawed than Lane thought—starting with Agent Walsh, who eyed him, waiting for compliance.
“I’m fine standing,” Lane bit out.
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m telling you to take a seat.”
“And I said I’m fine.”
Their invisible push and pull raised the temperature of the room.
“Takeshi, s
uwarinasai.
” His father intervened, a stern command to sit.
Lane’s gaze shot to his mother. The woman would never stand for such humiliation. After all, they had nothing to hide. But she remained rigid, her eyes fixed on the agent’s dress shoes, another insult to their home. That’s when Lane remembered he, too, hadn’t taken his off.
“Boss,” a voice called out. The Gary Cooper agent entered the kitchen. “I think we got something here.”
Walsh accepted a stack of large creased pages. Flickers from the lamp concealed the content from Lane’s view. The man flipped through them and drew out a whistle. “So you like airplanes, do you, Mr. Moritomo?”
“Yes, yes.” Lane’s father perked with a touch of enthusiasm.
“American bombers ... fighter planes ... all kinds, looks like.”
“Yes, yes. I paint for,
ee ...
” He searched for the word, found it. “Hobby. Is hobby.”
“Any chance you’ve been sharing some of these drawings with, oh I don’t know, friends back in Japan?”
Blueprints. That’s what they’d found. Blueprints for his model aircrafts. The same ones any kid could buy for a few nickels at Woolworth’s.
“This is ridiculous,” Lane blurted. “Are you trying to say my father’s a spy?”
Walsh crinkled the paper edges in his hands. “Better watch that tone, son.”
“I’m not your son. And my father’s not a criminal.” This wasn’t how America worked. Justice, democracy, liberty—these were the country’s foundational blocks that creeps like this kicked aside like pebbles.
Lane’s father stood up and yelled, “Takeshi!
Damarinasai.
”
“No,” Lane said, “I won’t be quiet. They can’t come in here and do this. We haven’t done anything. We’re
not
the enemy.” Holding his gaze, he implored his father to fight for the very ideals with which Lane had been raised. Yet the man said nothing. His Japanese roots had taken over, dictating his feudal servitude.
“Eh, Boss, we’re all set.” A third guy appeared. The brim of his fedora shaded his features from nostrils up. “Boss?”
Walsh relaxed his glower. “Yeah?”
“All the major contraband’s packed up.”
“Right.” He jerked his layered chin in Lane’s direction. “Then, let’s take him in.” The two other agents crossed the room, the faceless one pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
Lane’s stomach twisted. “What is this? You’re gonna arrest me?”
“Got a reason we shouldn’t?” Walsh said.
Gary Cooper raised a calming hand at his supervisor. “Al, you’re tired. You need some food, some sleep. Go on home and rest up. We got this.”
Walsh exhaled, rubbed his eyes. Eventually, he mumbled his concession and handed off the blueprints. He had just left the kitchen when Lane heard two metallic ripples. The third agent had handcuffed his father, explaining it as a formality.
“
Nani ga atta no?”
Lane’s mother demanded, now on her feet.
“We just need your husband for some more questioning,” the agent said. “He’ll be back by morning.”
“
Shinpai suruna,”
her husband assured her weakly as the men began escorting him out. “
Shikata ga nai.”
Lane despised the old adage.
It can’t be helped.
No culture needed to be so damn passive.
“You can’t do this!” Lane marched behind them. “Where are you taking him?”
“The Justice Department will be in touch,” one of them answered, right as Emma charged down the stairs, begging him to stay.
“Papa,
ikanaide.
” She shook his bound arms. “Papa, Papa!
It-tara dame!
”
He offered her phrases of comfort that did little good. Then he turned to Lane and in Japanese stated in an even tone, “From now on, you are responsible for the family.”
These were his final words before being ushered into the backseat of the agents’ car, the last instructions before Emma chased them two full blocks. She wailed out useless pleas as her mother retreated into the dishevelment of their house. Neighbors peeked from windows.
Yet for Lane, none of this—not the groundless arrest, not his sister’s cries nor their mother’s isolation—caused the physical blow that came from the look in his father’s eyes. A look of utter shame.

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