Gasa-Gasa Girl (12 page)

Joy, the daughter of two Nisei, had probably felt like a fish out of water during her two years of Japanese school. Most of the students during Mari and Joy’s time had at least one parent direct from Japan. To hear words built from the sounds a, i, u, e, o would be as natural as drinking water to them. But there apparently was a price to be paid for knowing Japanese so well. To be American, Mari told Mas one time, meant that you knew only one language: English.

“I was jealous of you,” Mari said to Joy. “Lucky girl, that’s what I was thinking. You could go to sleepovers and watch Saturday-morning cartoons like the rest of the kids. No one would think of you as an FOB.” FOB, Mari had used that term a lot in high school, Mas remembered. Now, what did it mean? Fresh Off the Boat, Asian immigrants like Chizuko and other so-called newcomers.

“But now, see,” Joy argued. “‘Made in Japan’ is cool. Video games,
manga
, everyone is getting into it.”

“That’s what Lloyd says, too. But he doesn’t understand that it wasn’t cool when we were growing up.”

“Well, he’s a white guy. What do you expect? They can go crazy for geisha and samurai, but it ain’t gonna change the color of their skin.”

“Joy—” Tug called out sternly.

Mari sat frozen, her mouth partially open, her tea mug steaming in her hands. Even Mas was surprised by Joy’s harsh tone.

“I’m sorry,” Joy said. “You know I’m just teasing you.”

A friendship that went back to preschool obviously counted for something, because Mari shrugged her shoulders. “Just wait until you get serious with someone, Joy,” Mari said. “I’m going to give you such a hard time.”

Joy exchanged a look with her father and retreated like a hermit crab into its shell at low tide. Mas didn’t understand what was going on with Tug, Joy, or Lil, for that matter. Tug had explained that Lil couldn’t come to New York City because she had to babysit their son Joe’s children. But the grandchildren had never stopped Tug and Lil from traveling together to Mount Rushmore and Branson, Missouri. Why, all of a sudden, would it prevent Lil from coming to the East Coast?

Tug slipped the end of his pipe into his mouth. Mas knew that Tug had no intention of lighting his pipe; it just felt good to bite down on something at times like these. Tug seemed deep in thought for ten minutes straight. When Joy pulled on her coat to leave, Tug finally spoke. “Heard of some of those flower shops Haruo was talking about, Mas. Have a friend who’s a florist. I saw him at church last Sunday. I’ll make sure he’s going tomorrow. So, how about it, Mas—you game to go with me?”

Mas dislodged a piece of bacon from underneath his lower denture. The last place he wanted to spend his Sunday morning was cooped inside a Christian church or even a Buddhist temple. But if that’s where the answers were, that’s where they had to go.

“You guys aren’t playing detective, are you?” asked Joy. “You better just leave that to the cops. No telling what kind of trouble you can get into. This is not Pasadena. It’s not even L.A.”

Normally Mas would have agreed with Joy. But things had changed for Mas recently. He had been running away from life, from the Bomb, for more than fifty years, but finally he’d had to face his past; in the same way, he had to find out who had killed Kazzy Ouchi, or else the future sequence of events would ball up into a boulder, sending them all off the edge.

With that the Yamadas left, soon followed by Mari, who went to relieve Lloyd at the hospital. Mas was drying off a glass when Lloyd returned. As Lloyd sat drinking one of his dark foreign beers, Mas quietly told him that Takeo had been named the new member of the Ouchi Foundation board. Lloyd was not surprised. “I knew that,” he said. “Kazzy did mention to me that when he died, Takeo would be next in line. We can help guide the future of the garden and the museum. Not be just hired hands anymore.”

Mas pursed his lips. What would Detective Ghigo call this? A damn good motive.

“No matter what Kazzy thought of Mari and maybe even me,” explained Lloyd, “he really adored Takeo. I don’t know why. Maybe he saw himself in Takeo. He was always worried about Takeo’s health, especially lately. All that stuff about Lou Gehrig’s makes sense. Maybe he knew that he wasn’t going to be around that long, and wanted to make some sort of amends.”

Mas pulled out the newspaper article that he had torn from the
Post
. “You see newspapa?”

Lloyd nodded, taking another swig from his beer. “I’m still trying to figure out where that reporter got his information. I wanted to return his call, but Jeannie advised me not to. It’s so frustrating; I want to defend myself, but I can’t. So far, I’ve been able to keep this article away from Mari—not to worry her, you know. And I erased the phone messages from those reporters. But I’m sure she’ll hear about it, sooner or later.”

As Mas listened, he tried to figure out if his son-in-law was hiding anything. This was his grandson’s father, his daughter’s husband. That counted for something. After half an hour of watching the news with Lloyd, Mas went for his jacket, hung over a chair, and took out his pack of Marlboros. He then gently tipped the cigarette pack onto the surface of the coffee table and watched as the bullet rolled and finally stopped in front of where his son-in-law sat.

chapter six

Mas stuffed his hands into his coat pockets on the corner of Twenty-fifth Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. He had made it to church an hour early, proof that he was getting used to the underground train. He had been so relaxed, in fact, that he had managed to doze through most of the commute, dragging himself out at Penn Station. He bought a hot dog from a cart for breakfast and walked to the intersection across the street from the church, waiting for Tug to arrive.

Other than a worn-out cross next to the glass door, the church looked like any four-story office building in a neighborhood of discount clothing outlets and tropical juice bars. A homeless man slept outside the industrial metal gates, which had been unlocked and pushed open by a Nisei man at about nine-fifteen. They even seemed to know each other, since the Nisei gingerly walked over the homeless man’s body so as not to wake him.

Mas didn’t understand the concept of church. He figured religion ran in someone’s family like diabetes and thinning hair. So he was surprised when he learned that Tug was actually the first and only one among his brothers and sisters to become a Christian. His conversion had happened at the hands of a Christian Nisei soldier from Hawaii who had apparently saved Tug’s life on the war front in Italy. The soldier was wounded badly and later died, so it only made sense that Tug would pick up the Hawaiian man’s religion. That kind of gratitude Mas could appreciate.

Tug told Mas that converting to Christianity had not won him any popularity contests in the extended Yamada family. As the
chonan
, the oldest son, he was responsible for inheriting and taking care of the family
Butsudan,
the Buddhist altar. Any good son knew that every morning he must burn a stick of incense, put out a tangerine or a bowl of rice, and say a few chants in memory of the dead parents, whose framed portraits were usually placed on the arms of the altar. But Tug refused, saying that he wouldn’t participate in ancestor worship. His first allegiance was to his
Kamisama,
his God, Jesus. Tug’s brothers and sisters were aghast, calling him ungrateful and disrespectful behind his back. His younger sister took charge of the
Butsudan,
usually lighting two sticks of incense—the extra one to make up for the
chonan
’s obvious deficiencies. Soon after Tug shared that story, Mas noticed how Tug’s parents’ photos were prominently displayed on a polished
tansu
, a Japanese chest of drawers, in the Yamada living room. More often than not, a bowl next to the photos was filled with fresh oranges or apples. Although Tug had sworn off ancestor worship, it was obvious that he had created an altar of his own, Nisei Christian style.

As Mas opened and closed his hands to better circulate his blood in the cold, Tug rounded the corner on the other side of the street. Tug was wearing a suit and tie, and Mas suddenly felt self-conscious about his appearance. The homeless man, in turn, was shuffling away in a pile of torn blankets. It was indeed time for church.

M
as followed Tug through the glass doors, down a dim corridor, and finally to a set of open double doors. The same Nisei man who had unlocked the metal gates earlier stood smiling, offering both Tug and Mas sheets of paper, a program of the morning’s events. It was too early for Mas to smile, so instead he bowed his head, surreptitiously brushing away a few grains of rice stuck to his sweater from the night before.

The main sanctuary was a narrow room with wooden pews, a stage, and a large cross in front. The unfamiliar room scared Mas. There were no windows—what would there be to look at, anyway? Most of the back pews were filled, black and gray heads everywhere. Most of them seemed to be Nisei old-timers like Tug, with a few younger Japanese foreign students, their hair misshapen from their pillows and sleep still in their eyes. Tug nodded to a few friends dressed in crisp suits and dresses, and Mas wondered which of them was the florist who might hold the key to the Mystery Gardenia.

Mas followed Tug in between a row of open pews. The hard seats were all set up to look forward and gaze at the cross. Mas imagined himself pinned down on that cross, his hands forced away from his body. He had only gone to church a couple of times with Chizuko, but that building was round with panels of windows. Mas didn’t know if it was the gardener in him, but he felt that anything holy had to have at least a speck of green in it.

Attached to the back of the pew in front of them was a compartment for big, thick books. At their feet was some kind of folded-up board covered with a thin cushion.

Holding open these thick books, the Nisei sang in English, the young ones in Japanese. Somehow the sounds merged together, comforting Mas’s ears, which hungered to hear the familiar rhythm of his two languages intertwined like crossed fishing lines. The rest of the service was downhill, with one suited speaker after another making announcements. At one point, Tug pulled down the cushioned contraption, which turned out to be a small padded bench. The whole line of worshipers then went down, kneeling on the bench. Mas didn’t want to seem rude, so he followed along, too. Everyone closed their eyes and recited a prayer, and Mas couldn’t help but think about Mari, Lloyd, and especially Takeo.

At the end of his speech, the Nisei minister, dressed in a heavy white gown, brought out a covered gold plate and a large cup. One by one, men and women, looking solemn and sad, went forward. They knelt down before the minister (your knees needed to be in good condition in Christianity, noted Mas), who picked up something from the now open plate and placed it in their mouths. They took turns sipping from the same cup—the minister wiped the rim each time with a white cloth. Mas doubted that was enough to kill the
baikin
that would make the whole lot of them sick. But Mas knew that it was important for them to share the same cup of germs and filth, because wasn’t that the way it worked with people and life, anyway?

When Tug returned to his seat, Mas noticed he was brushing away tears from the corners of his eyes. What did Tug have to mourn about? His life was perfect. A war hero with medals. Two healthy grandchildren. A son who made enough money to live in a 1970s ranch-style house near the ocean. This religion was a strange thing, thought Mas. Even the saints seemed to have regrets.

After the last prayer, the white-gowned minister walked down the aisle, breaking the silence among the people in the pews. Everyone got up, smiled, and talked. The real work was now ready to begin.

M
as followed Tug closely down the stairs to the basement. Tug had come to church before, so he seemed to quickly understand its practices, both during and after the service.

A number of old veterans and their wives stopped Tug on the steps and asked about his family.

“Oh, Joy didn’t make it again?” one person asked.

“Well, you know how it is.”

Another Nisei inquired about Joe.

“Joe and his wife have two kids,” Tug said, fiddling with the round “Go for Broke” pin attached to his tie. “He’s the manager of his department now.”

And then, to a question about why Lil wasn’t with him, Tug answered, “She wasn’t feeling well enough for this trip.”

Mas was surprised by Tug’s answers. Lil was supposed to be babysitting, right? And Tug himself had complained that Joe’s aerospace company was downsizing, and as a result, Joe had suffered a fifteen percent pay cut. Tug usually played it straight, so Mas was surprised his friend was blurring lines. But they were the lines of his life. None of Mas’s business.

Mas wandered to a table full of sweets and Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee and green tea. “Welcome, welcome. This is your first time here, right?” An old Nisei woman pressed down on the plastic top of a hot-water dispenser, releasing a stream of boiling water into a teakettle. She wore a bright pink and purple outfit, representing a young soul. But her skin, especially around her eyes and cheeks, was as flabby as the worn tread of a flat tire.

Ah, Mas thought, he was caught. Mas tried to ignore the woman, picking up a quartered chocolate glazed donut with a napkin and balancing a cup of hot tea in his other hand.

“Naughty, naughty. You should have stood up when the minister called out for new visitors. This is no place to be shy, you know.”

Mas bit into a donut. Even Tug knew well enough not to tell Mas to stand up in church, so he wasn’t going to heed the nagging of strangers.

Tug then arrived to save him. “Sorry about that, old man,” Tug said, grabbing a donut dusted in powdered sugar. Mas was happy that the basement was so crowded that he could take cover behind Tug’s massive body as if he were getting shade from a redwood tree.

His tactic worked, because the woman turned her attention to Tug. “Hey, you look familiar. Weren’t you at church on Sunday?”

“Yes, yes, I was.”

“Yes, and you actually stood up,” she said loudly, probably trying to make a point to the hidden Mas. “What’s your name?”

“Tug, Tug Yamada.”

“Yamada, Yamada.”

Mas squeezed his Styrofoam cup. Both he and Tug knew what was going to happen next. The woman was going to go through a whole list of Yamadas throughout New York, the East Coast, and then all of the U.S. Didn’t she realize that the Yamada name was pretty common, at least one of the top twenty back in Japan?

“No, no, no,” Tug replied each time to a reference to a certain Yamada she knew.

“You in camp?”

“Heart Mountain, before I was drafted.”

“Oh, Wyoming, huh? I was in Rohwer, Arkansas.”

“My wife was in Arkansas,” said Tug. Mas noticed that Tug’s voice was becoming warmer, more interested. What was it about Nisei and camp? Sometimes it felt like an elite club to Mas, instead of a prison. But then, that was the way of the Nisei, especially the ones who had been able to reestablish their lives after World War II. In camp, they took discarded lumber and carved beautiful birds and assembled high-quality furniture. Now, years after camp, they made chrysanthemum flowers from clear plastic six-ring soda can holders. They had the knack of making beauty out of trash.

“Where were you before the war?” Tug asked.

“Montebello. Flower growers.”

“Montebello? I’m from San Dimas, just a few miles away.”

“We were neighbors, then. Haven’t gone back in twenty years.”

“You wouldn’t recognize it now. No more flower fields in Montebello, just malls and tract homes,” explained Tug.

“I need to get over there. I’ve been retired for a while now, and have been traveling throughout Europe. I do volunteer work at the New York Japanese American Social Service Center once a week.”

The Japanese American Social Service Center had been mentioned in the
Post
article, Mas remembered. He appeared from his hiding place behind Tug. “Mamiya?”

“Huh?”

“Sumptin’ Mamiya. Read it in the newspapa about Ouchi-
san
.”

“Oh, Elk Mamiya. He’s just an old coot. Don’t listen to what he says. Got a lot of head problems. He just happened to be at the Service Center when the reporter came by. The reporter interviewed a bunch of us, but of course he quoted Elk.” The woman poured the steeped tea into Styrofoam cups. “None of us said what we really thought of Kazzy’s death. I mean, it was shocking, but then again—”