Private Life (49 page)

"Yes,

but--"

"Yes, but what?"

"That's not true in the navy."

Agent Keene laughed.

She said, "Should I mention to my husband that you've been here? That he has,

uh, been vindicated?"

"Are you in the habit of confiding in Captain Early?"

"Not.

Everything."

"Then I would suggest that you maintain your usual habits. We aren't

investigating Captain Early. His putting of two and two together has been interesting,

however."

"If that report crossed your desk so long ago, why are you visiting me now?"

"A lot of reports cross my desk, Mrs. Early. When it came to my attention that the

man who sent that letter was the same man who has been repeatedly seen on the Golden

Gate Bridge, I thought the coincidence was interesting enough to follow up on."

She thought about Andrew crossing the bridge, and, no doubt, crisscrossing San

Francisco, pursuing some hobbyhorse. She said, "Do you want to be inundated with

material?"

"We are inundated with material."

"My husband sees every vindication as a spur to greater efforts. How can I put

this?" She pursed her lips. "Every atom is a star. Every hunch threatens to explode into a

universe."

"I think I understand your meaning. We won't encourage him."

"Even though he's been vindicated?"

"Even though he's been vindicated."

"I think that's the best way."

She walked Agent Keene to the door, and watched him get in his car. The weather

had turned cloudy, and it was raining by the time Andrew and Stella got home. Over

supper, she made Andrew tell her the plot of the movie, with the leads and some of the bit

players. He talked fluently, and seemed to have seen it. And enjoyed it, too.

NAOKO telephoned her one morning and said that her father expected to live

about a week, and that he wanted to wish his friends farewell. Margaret had never known

Mr. Kimura's exact age, but she supposed that he was older than Andrew. She hadn't seen

any of the Kimuras for quite some time, though the rabbit by the door and the coots

above the side table in the dining room fooled her into thinking that the artist was present

in her house.

She said, "Dying?"

"I wouldn't have said that he is dying. He seems healthy enough, but he always

said that he wouldn't live to see another war, and I think he is making good on his vow."

Margaret hesitated, but then she said, "Naoko, do you mean that he is committing

suicide?"

"No, that he is omitting to recover from a bout of pneumonia. He won't let my

mother try any remedies, and his breathing is getting worse."

"That must be terrifying for him."

"Maybe it will be at the end. But he's a stubborn man. I doubt he will change his

mind."

"When would he like to see me?"

"This afternoon, if that is no trouble for you."

"Of course it's no trouble."

Over lunch, Andrew seemed surprised when she told him where she was going.

He took a couple of spoonfuls of his soup and then a bite of bread and said, "I didn't

know you were that close to Mr. Kimura. He doesn't even speak English, does he?"

"I'm not close to him at all, but I love the rabbit. And he painted the coots for me."

She could see the picture through the kitchen doorway, from her seat at the table.

"And he wants you at his deathbed."

"I don't think they're calling it his deathbed right now. He might recover

spontaneously, but I'm sure he's almost eighty, or even past eighty."

"I'm

seventy-three."

She ignored this and was surprised when he offered to walk to the shop with her.

She took the shears out and cut a nice bouquet of her roses, all white buds, more than a

dozen. It was a fragrant bouquet, but she worried all the way to the Kimuras' (about

twenty minutes) that perhaps it was too showy and mundane for them. Andrew walked at

his normal pace; she made an effort to keep up. They left Stella locked in the kitchen, and

all the way down the first block, they could hear her barking reminders that they had

forgotten something. When they arrived at the shop, Andrew declared that he was going

to do some errands, and "leave you to your friends, my dear." This was fine with

Margaret, for she had imagined that Andrew would be awkward in every way--too big,

too loud, too aware of himself. She watched him stride away down the street, and entered

the door of the shop.

In spite of what she said to Andrew, she had been imagining some deathbed scene

out of a Victorian novel--Mr. Kimura as Little Eva, for example--but it was not at all like

that. There were several other guests, including Mrs. Wareham. Mr. Chang, it turned out,

had a small restaurant three doors down. Mr. Lloyd sold stationery and art supplies on

Napa Street, where Mr. Kimura had long purchased what he needed for his paintings.

Miss Wolfe had a bookstore, and because she was close to Chinatown, she stocked a few

books in Chinese and Japanese (as well as French, German, and Italian). She was an

ample woman about Margaret's age.

It was a party. The reason Naoko had made it suddenly for today was that the

weather was a little warm, which allowed Mr. Kimura to sit out in the garden. He sat in a

low chair with a sturdy back, sunk inside his most elegant kimono--dark blue trimmed

with white and gray. He seemed almost too weak to lift its sleeves, but he nodded and

gestured to each of them, and Naoko showed them where to kneel or sit. After Mrs.

Kimura brought around a basin and a cloth for washing their hands, Naoko gave them

each a bowl of tea.

Margaret had been to the garden once, long before, but only briefly. Now she saw

that the garden was Mr. Kimura's masterpiece, small though it was, and in a rather

crowded part of town. There was a hillock, a pond, a raked gravel area. The trees were

small and neatly trimmed. But, evidence of his advancing years, the fence was leaning

here and there, and a few slats had slipped--she could see the dirty alley beyond the green

paradise. And it was very green, though there were few flowers in bloom. When it was

her turn to greet the old man, she stepped up to the low chair, bowed as well as she could

manage, and laid the roses on a low table beside him, along with the other gifts.

Once they had had their tea, they were free to move about a little bit, first to

approach Mr. Kimura and tell him, through Naoko, that the garden looked especially

nice, and that he, too, looked well. In turn, he welcomed them and said that it had been

far too long since he had seen them, and that he had thought of them many times with

affectionate friendship. Then he gave each of them a small gift wrapped in paper and

decorated with his personal stamp and an ideogram. The box Margaret received was

about twelve inches long and four inches wide. The paper was yellow, and Naoko told

her that the ideogram represented the word for "grace." She was quite moved by this;

when she made her small bow, she suddenly had tears in her eyes. She backed away, as

she saw others doing, and then went over to speak to Mrs. Wareham, who, as the oldest,

had greeted Mr. Kimura first.

Mrs. Wareham asked her where Andrew was.

"He came with me, but he didn't come in."

"Andrew is well meaning, but he doesn't seem to fit here, does he?"

"Not really. I was a little afraid, myself, that he would crush everything that he sat

on or touched. It would be very embarrassing for them."

"And

you."

"Maybe. Though, if I found him embarrassing this late in the day, what would that

signify?"

Mrs. Wareham smiled.

Margaret said, "Do you like my roses?"

"They're

lovely."

There was no talk of the impending death. Mr. Chang invited her to his restaurant;

Mr. Lloyd told her that, once he began carrying the papers that Mr. Kimura had wanted,

he had learned more about paper than he ever thought possible. "I'm not even going to tell

you how much he paid for the papers he wrapped our gifts in. You'd have thought they

had gold threads. But he would have them."

"I'll remember that when I open mine."

"Goodness' sake, don't tear it. Frame it."

"I

will."

She also struck up a conversation with Miss Wolfe, who said, "I only have the

bookstore to supplement my income as a poet, but I am having to let some of the

collections dwindle. It seems sad when you can't even put Dante on the shelves without

raising a few eyebrows. Not to mention Goethe."

Margaret said, "What sort of poetry do you write?"

"Light verse. Sometimes I draw a cartoon or two."

"How long have you lived here?"

"Not quite a year. I moved up here from Los Angeles."

In honor of the serious occasion, Margaret dampened her interest in this very

attractive person. The party was short, but even so, Mr. Kimura's evident exhaustion

when Margaret stopped one last time to take his hand smote her, and as she stood outside

the shop in the street, looking for Andrew, she felt lower than she had expected to feel.

Andrew came down the street from the west, the direction of the library. He was

late because he had gotten tied up looking at maps. He asked if she had had a nice time,

and whether Pete had been there. That was when she realized that Pete had not been

there.

At home, she opened the package to discover one of Mr. Kimura's brushes--it still

smelled faintly of what must have been ink. She showed it to Andrew, who said, "Most

probably squirrel hair." She wrote her thank-you note at once, and walked down the street

to mail it.

Mr. Kimura died two days later.

IN the fall, Andrew said to her over supper, apropos of nothing, "I could have told

Joe Kimura years ago not to go over there."

"Did you ever meet Joe Kimura?"

Andrew shook his head. "I should have. For his sake, I should have."

Margaret decided to ignore this remark, and said, "What was he to do here? Live

in a room with his brother for the rest of his life, and never marry or have a family? Yes,

he apprenticed to Dr. Matsumi in Japantown, but there weren't enough people in

Japantown to support two dental practices. He did well in Japan for a while. Well enough

to find a wife."

"How often do they hear from him?" He put a crumb of bread on the tip of his

finger and held it out to Stella. She walked over to him in a dignified way and took it,

then sat.

"I have no idea. I think Lester hears more often, since they've always been close.

But it's true, Joe might be forced into the military and find himself stuck in Burma."

"Why do you say Burma?"

"I don't know. Naoko said her greatest fear was that he would be impressed into

the army and find himself in the tropics."

"To my knowledge, China is far from tropical."

"Well, that's what she said. The geography is hazy to me."

He gave Stella another bit of bread. "You know, there are Japanese spies

everywhere."

"We aren't at war with them, though."

"What they do is find these boys who are on the outs with the navy, or down and

out, and they give them money, and these kids get them what they want."

"What do they want?"

"Codebooks. Operational manuals. Descriptions of ships. Almost anything,

really."

"But we're neutral. They don't want to be at war with us."

"Do they not? They've signed the Tripartite Pact with the Germans and the

Italians."

This had happened about four days before, and had been much talked about in the

papers. Margaret thought, So this is what he's getting at. She said, "Even so, being at war

with us would make no sense."

"Perhaps they think we will soon be at war with Germany, and then they can enter

through the back door."

"Roosevelt

knows--"

"We are the back door," interrupted Andrew.

She stared at him.

"My dear," he said, "I have something I would like you to read. It is of my own

composition, a rough draft. I improved this version a bit before I sent it off, but the gist is

the same. I'll get it." He stood up and went into his office. He came back with a sheaf of

papers of the sort she recognized only too well--small handwriting (though readable),

written from edge to edge and top to bottom, numbered in big slashing numbers in the top

left corner, one to twenty-four. He handed them to her and turned on his heel, went to the

coat rack, took his coat, and went out, leaving Stella with her. The papers were addressed

to President Roosevelt, the Commandant of the Base, and the Secretary of the Navy.

In her hands was a diary of Andrew's activities for about two years--from the late

winter of 1938, just after the
Panay
incident, through that year, and into January of 1940.

What he had recorded were his observations from all sorts of vantage points around the

bay and on the other side of San Francisco, as far west as Ocean Beach, along the shore

of Golden Gate Park, and Lincoln Park, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and up into

Marin County. He had been all around the bay: Oakland, Emeryville, San Pablo, Pinole,

San Rafael, Corte Madera, Tiburon, Sausalito, San Mateo. In all of these places, he had

stared out at the water with his binoculars. He had seen a number of suspicious things,