The Hummingbird (22 page)

The woman said she was calling from the office of a United States congressman. “Your husband gave us this number,” she explained.

I stopped short. “Is Michael all right?”

“Fine.” The woman said. “We’re having an incident with him, though.”

“What sort of incident?”

“Your husband wanted to bring a Veterans Affairs complaint to our attention. Which he did, persuasively. We now have a grievance on file, a docket number, and it is in our caseload mix.”

I swallowed hard, waiting for the bad news. “Why are you calling me?”

“He won’t leave.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your husband refuses to leave. He’s blocking one of the building’s doorways. We could call the police, but we don’t want press involved.”

“What is your address?” I began trotting down the road.

She told me, and I marveled. It was completely across town from Michael’s auto shop. Walking there must have taken half the day.

“I’ll get there as soon as I can.” By then I was standing beside my car. Fully in the shade when I parked that morning, now it basked in afternoon sun. I opened the door and a roasting hot breath blasted out at me.

THE CONGRESSMAN’S OFFICE
was in a building with metal detectors and two guards in the lobby. I strode across the marble courtyard, past the fountain, feeling the sun reflect off the tall stories of glass.

Michael was lying across the right-hand set of double doors, making them impossible to open. But it was silly: There was another set on the left, not thirty feet away, through which people came and went at will. In the foyer, a group of people watched him while mostly chatting among themselves. I would have expected a crowd on the square too, but it was near the end of the workday. Michael was dressed in desert fatigues. He looked large and awkward and, quite frankly, a little pathetic.

But when he heard footsteps approaching, he raised his head, recognized me, and did the most unexpected thing. He smiled.

There was no irony in it, no sarcasm. It was the real thing. And I had not seen him since he stormed off the night before. I was completely disarmed. Michael’s smile. It was all I could do not to burst into tears.

I squatted in one side of the doorway. “Hey there.”

“Hi, Deb. How was your day?”

It could have been a conversation in our backyard, he was so easy and offhand. As though he blocked buildings’ doorways several times a week. “Full of surprises,” I answered. “But I’m glad to see you.”

“Same here.” Michael was still smiling.

“So.” The last thing I wanted to do was change the mood. If we were going to have a moment of connection, that doorway was as good a place as any. But I glanced inside, and the guards were standing beside their desk, watching us. One rested his hand on a nightstick. I waved at the building, the fountain, the doorway. “What’s going on?”

“You know . . .” he began, rubbing a thumb against the palm of his other hand. “You know the other day, when I went to Joel’s?”

“Sure. You said he and Gene had an argument.”

“Times two. But before they got into it, Joel had one of his rants.”

“I’m familiar with them.”

“Yeah, he feels terrible about that.”

I put a hand on Michael’s leg, and he did not withdraw. “Not to worry.”

“The whole noncombatant thing gets him revved. But this recent one, the new rant, it’s a big part of why I’m here.”

Guard inside be damned, I was not going to rush this moment for one second. “What was it about?”

“Treatment of returning soldiers throughout history. Did you know one-third of the Union dead in the Civil War were buried before the bodies had been identified? Or that black soldiers in the South, coming home from World War I, were beaten for wearing uniforms in public? And now there are tens of thousands of guys like me just waiting, you know, standing in line for help? We trusted our country, we fought for it, and now it is blowing us off. It happens in every war, is the point. Soldiers are mistreated when they come home. Joel said everyone complains about people spitting on Vietnam vets, but who knows? Maybe that was more honest.”

I kept my hand on his thigh, in no hurry to lose contact. “I thought we had your benefits all set, sweetheart. Have you been waiting for something?”

“Not me. Gene. You should see how he walks because of that prosthetic leg. Hunchback of Notre Dame. Frankenstein.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Times fifty.” Michael began wringing his hands. “When he took me to Joel’s, it’s his right leg he hurt, OK? So not only does he have to drive with his left foot, but also he has to lay his hurt leg across the passenger seat. Basically, Deb, Gene has to drive with his stump in my lap.”

“Ouch.”

“All because they can’t get him one damn screw. It’s a strange one, I admit, but really? This guy served three deployments, and they can’t get him a simple screw?”

“It sounds ridiculous. But the woman who called from the office here sounded responsive. She said they were working on it.”

“Come on, Deb. That’s total bullshit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know how long Gene has been gimping around that way, can’t walk without pain, can’t even stand at the stove and make dinner, while they fritter and dither and don’t do a goddam thing?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Seven months.” He was barking now, poking a rigid finger into his palm. “This guy sacrificed his leg, and they’ve stalled him for seven months.”

“That can’t be true.”

“He came home before I did, right? Didn’t finish the tour because of his wounds, obviously. He had surgery, recovery, PT, all decent enough. Then the leg they gave him came with a faulty part. He’s been waiting on this screw since December ninth. And here we are mid-July.” He poked that same finger in my direction. “Deb, it is unjust.”

“Well, honey.” I sat back, hands to myself. “It’s not like they have a bin full of spare screws in some back room here—”

“Of course not. But I keep all sorts of strange things in my shop’s inventory, stuff I may never need, because it costs almost nothing and it’s worth having handy for emergencies. Do you have any idea how undignified it is for this guy, this goddam hero, to have to put his stump in my lap?”

I don’t know why I couldn’t just agree with my husband. Something about needing to defend our society, about explaining that we were imperfect but had good intentions. Maybe, too, I felt a tinge of guilt over my little fantasy at the lumberyard. Maybe I was compensating by being overly rational.

I sat back on my haunches. “I’m not saying that making Gene wait is OK, Michael. Just that maybe you should be reasonable. Now that you’re in their file, I can’t imagine it would take much longer.”

“Reasonable?” Michael pounded his thigh, right where my hand had been. “He
has
been reasonable, Deb. And calm. And patient. And where’s it gotten him? To a place where it is somehow acceptable for them to jerk off all day, while he hobbles around like fucking Quasimodo.”

Michael ran his hands up and down his legs, calming himself. A breeze strummed the fountain, sending light spray harmlessly across the plaza.

“Look, Deb,” he continued, his voice low. “I didn’t need you here. I could have made this little fuss just fine on my own. I had them call because I trusted you. I thought you were on my side.”

Right then, I understood what Barclay Reed had meant. Iraqi insurgents were not the only adversaries Michael needed a truce with. It was me, too.

Here I had thought all along that we were at peace—or at least coexisting in some temporary place, in which he had his difficulties and I was helping him back to sanity. When actually, I’d been preventing peace the whole time: overeager after the Dr. Doremus sessions, pushing too hard about the face drawings, coming on too strong as a voice of reason right then.

Once upon a time, loving Michael had been the simplest thing, as natural as breathing. But now here I was, doing it in the worst possible way.

And there in my thinking, like some bizarre role model, was Ichiro Soga. He had made the decision to empathize with his adversary. He had more than earned forgiveness, but still never asked Donny Baker to give up his stubborn views. Instead, he managed to bend toward his adversary. Whether Soga’s story was real or a fabrication did not really matter. The idea that it
might
be true was good enough.

The hell with being reasonable. The hell with respecting a governmental process. I would choose Soga’s path. I would bend.

I stood up, and held out a hand.

“What?” Michael scowled. “I’m not leaving.”

“Come on. We’re going to go get some answers.”

He stared at me a long while, considering. I just kept my hand out there, as steady as . . . well, as a tree planted beside a monument.

At last my husband stood, brushed off the seat of his pants, and took my hand. I loved it, his large strong paw, warm from his afternoon of sitting in that doorway in the sun. That may sound like high school romance, like silly infatuation, but for one crucial fact: It was our most intimate touch since the day Michael came home.

And we walked inside that building holding hands. Together.

TWELVE ADDITIONAL YEARS ELAPSED
before Ichiro Soga flew to Oregon for the third time.

By 1985, U.S. relations with Japan had normalized, propelled by commerce, and in particular the soaring demand for consumer products. Millions of Americans drove Japanese cars, listened to music on Sony Walkmans, and squandered vast fortunes of time playing video games made in Japan. Brookings itself had a sushi restaurant, on Pacific Avenue near the wharf.

Forty-three years had elapsed since Soga’s two missions over Mount Emily. Brookings had grown prosperous, new houses sprouting on the ridges with breathtaking views, the formerly gritty harbor now boasting hotels and restaurants.

Xenophobia dies slowly, however. When news of the impending visit spread, letters to the
Pilot
criticized not only Soga, but those who welcomed him.

The Japanese guest stayed only briefly. He had a specific purpose. Now seventy-three, he had sold the hardware store in Tsuchiura and retired. Although he continued to wear the pressed suit and black shoes, his glasses were thicker than ever, his walk noticeably slower.

At a breakfast in a hotel conference room with the chamber of commerce, in English sufficiently broken that the reporter for the
Pilot
paraphrased rather than quoting directly, Soga revealed his intention: With a portion of the proceeds from his store, he wished to establish an exchange program.

He had come to Brookings to invite four high school students, to be selected by the community for their intelligence, deportment, and interest in mathematics, to travel to Tokyo for the famed Tsubaka Science Exposition later that year.

There would be scientific exhibits from around the globe, Soga explained, a true world’s fair. The students would have opportunities for meetings, meals, and cultural enrichment. Above all, he said, the trip would foster greater warmth and understanding between the peoples of two great nations.

At that point in Soga’s remarks, one chamber member pushed back from his table and left the room. Now sixty-one years old, Donny Baker III was notoriously impatient, dismissed small talk, and would tell anyone who asked that he would rather be hunting or flying his plane. Not known for social niceties, he let the conference room door slam behind him.

His departure apparently represented a minority view. According to the next day’s
Pilot,
when Soga finished his speech, the rest of the chamber members “roared their approval.”

The following autumn, the school board held a news conference to announce the four young ladies selected for the trip: Lisa Phelps, Sara Cortell, Robyn Soiseth, and—interestingly, inexplicably—the angel-voiced cherub now a twelfth grader, Heather Baker.

One can only imagine the discussions that ensued in the Baker household following the announcement. There is no public record, no letter to the school board or the
Pilot.
But the names had been declared publicly, with media present. For Heather’s family to decline her selection would insult the board, Soga, and the other girls. So she packed her bags.

Donny did not join his wife in driving Heather six hours up the coast highway and inland to the airport in Portland. The girls flew to Japan accompanied by several chaperones, including one local grandmother who had traveled extensively in the Orient in the 1950s.

Soga was waiting at the Tokyo airport to greet the entourage. In a first-person account she wrote afterward for the
Pilot,
Heather Baker described the former bomber pilot’s welcome as “tearful.”

He had arranged host families for each of the girls. They enjoyed a week of sightseeing and courtesy tours, as well as full days at the science expo. The visitors received bouquets and necklaces. They visited a temple and the Imperial Gardens. They saw a performance of dancers in traditional kimonos.

At the final dinner the four girls gave Soga gifts made of redwood and myrtlewood—bowls, salad tongs, and a clock—all products of Brookings. Again he cried, one hand over his brow to conceal his embarrassment. The fearsome warrior had become a weepy old man.

When Heather landed in Portland, she was greeted by her mother alone.