A Girl Like You: A Novel Part 27

It wouldn't surprise her either, since he has that bounce-back thing about him. Nothing is going to keep him down.

They walk in the park and she feels small beside the bulk of him, she was used these days to walking with Joseph, who is slim and only a couple of inches taller than her.

Pete tells her about his time in the Army, about the war, about the German concentration camps he has seen. He believes that America has single-handedly set the world to rights.

"G.o.d, those German b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he says. "Europe's had it. It's the most decadent place on earth. Thank G.o.d for America."

America this, America that, he is in love with his country; nothing bad about that, she supposes, it reminds her of Haru. But he takes it too far, until she wishes he would stop crowing about the US of A, as he calls it. It feels to her like preaching, like one of Haru's lectures.

"We live in the most decent country on earth," he says. "You'd know that if you'd seen what I've seen."

"I was in a camp too. An American one," she ventures. "I wasn't thanking G.o.d for America then."

He looks away from her, gives an embarra.s.sed laugh as though she has made an inappropriate joke.

"Sure, Edward told me. But h.e.l.l, it's not the same thing at all."

"No, maybe not. Still, it was a camp. It was imprisonment."

It wasn't the same thing, she knew that. She had read about those concentration camps, the inhuman things that went on in them. Mrs. Copeland often spoke of it, had periods of depression about it, cried for her lost relatives, and thought herself lucky as a Jew that she was also an American. You couldn't compare Manzanar to those malignant places, yet still she thought it wrong to judge the camps against each other. It occurs to her that there is a ranking of what it was okay to talk about in these postwar times. Germany's treatment of the Jews, fine; America's of the j.a.panese, not.

"Things happen," he says. "Long as they work out well in the end, I guess."

"You can't just dismiss innocent people losing their homes, being caged, Pete. What if it had been you?"

"Yeah, I kinda see your point, but ..."

"Really?" she senses that he hasn't seen her point at all. "I don't think you can bear to think about America being in the wrong about anything." She wants him to know that just because things had been worse in Germany, she wouldn't be silenced about the camps in America.

"Well, I'm not sure that's-"

"There were deaths, some would say murders, in Manzanar. Boys shot, an old man killed for refusing to halt at the guards' command. And plenty who didn't survive the conditions. Did you know that orphaned babies were imprisoned there?"

"Look." He is in a conciliatory mood. "I guess I didn't think it out. Let's not talk about it, huh. The war's over, after all. We'll make a proper night of it next time, shall we? Start over."

It was unforgiving of her, she knew, but she couldn't help herself. "No next time," she said lightly. "I don't think we're going to work out."

Pete Elderkin was never going to think it out. His blind love of country, what seemed to her to be his denial of what went on in the American camps, played on her mind for a few days until a letter from Dr. Harper arrived, which put things back in perspective. She hadn't been making too much of it. It was cheating yourself to love in ignorance, to love what you didn't know, and wherever it took place injustice was injustice.

I hadn't realized I had collected quite so much. It's a bigger archive than I had at first thought. When you are ready I want you to have it. I'm not expecting you to do anything with it, but I'm shocked by the silence of our leaders, the lack of an apology. Perhaps the time's not right yet, but someday you might be pleased to have it, if only to show your children.

She isn't sure that she does want it. His reports on sick inmates, the personal things he has collected, the photographs and the journals that will surely include Tamura's life, her death, might be too much for her. He might as well be handing over the earth of Manzanar, her mother's grave, the dead riot boys, the skin and blood of the camp's inmates. She is afraid of Dr. Harper's archive, of the pain it will cause her to go through it.

I'm still trying to trace Cora, he a.s.sures her.

I've written to various orphanages. They take their time replying, but none so far know of Cora. I think it means that she must have found a family, which would be the best news if only we could be sure of it.

Her own efforts to find Cora are not nearly enough, she thinks. She feels powerless, hardly up to the task, so far away from wherever Cora might be. And none of the letters she has written to government offices have met with any success. The chocolate box is filling up with trinkets for the child, satin ribbons, a necklace, a child's hairbrush, things she is beginning to fear Cora will never see.

But along with Eriko's less frequent letters, Dr. Harper's serve to anchor her, keep her linked to her past. Manzanar is always with her, Cora too, but New York is an intrusive city and won't be ignored.

With her feelings of home stirred, she writes to Haru care of Eriko, a short exploratory letter to ask if he thinks of her as she does him. Even if he doesn't, she asks him to make inquiries in his locality about Cora, to visit the orphanages on her behalf.

My feelings haven't changed, and I feel brave enough to ask if yours have. I could return to California, but I would only come if you wanted it.

His answering letter is brief, lecturing in tone: You must let Cora go, make your own life now, Satomi. It would be a mistake to return here. Stick to what you have chosen.

It hurts to read his disinterest on the page, the truth of his feelings written so bluntly. It's obvious to her now that Haru had only found her beautiful on the outside. The thing between them, so large a part in her life, had after all only played out in a minor key in his. She must shed the hope she harbored that one day they would be reunited. The truth is bleak, but at least she won't miss the preaching.

Joseph has kept her from what he terms society, from any introduction that might go wrong, that might offend her. You never know how uptown will react to outsiders, and he doesn't want to see her hurt. He introduces her to his best friend Hunter, though. Not much of a risk, he thinks, as Hunter isn't cursed with sn.o.bbery or, amazingly, with bitterness. Wheelchair-bound for life since being wounded at Pearl Harbor, Hunter has a lighthearted take on even the most serious things in life.

"Satomi's father was killed at Pearl Harbor," Joseph tells him straight off, wanting them to have something in common, even something so horrible. "It's extraordinary that you were both there, don't you think?"

"So he and I were colleagues-in-arms, then," Hunter says, taking her hand, smiling at her.

"I guess."

"I was luckier than your father. Just the legs," he says, as though they were the smallest of concerns.

She thinks it ridiculous that this boyish man, dressed like an Ivy League frat boy, still sporting a childlike smile, would have ranked over her father. But she instantly likes him, can see why Joseph is so fond of him, why even in a wheelchair he is, if Joseph is to be believed, able to play the field with one cute girl after another.

"Don't know what you've done to my boy," Hunter says. "I've never seen him so happy. It's a surprise."

On their dates now Joseph greets her with a brief kiss on the cheek. He never kisses her good night, though, suspecting something more will be expected of him if he does. He picks her up from her building in a cab, returns her in a cab. He can't bear the subway, can't bear being crushed up against the ma.s.ses. It's surprising to Satomi he has never learned to drive.

"I was a chauffeur-driven city boy," he excuses himself. "You're a country girl; I bet you had old trucks and tractors to practice on."

"You guess right." She laughs, thinking with a pang of their old truck, of her mother facing up to mean old Tom Myers.

They eat early and unless he takes her to the theater he has her home by ten, as though he is expecting an anxious parent to confront him. She is beginning to think that he has other places to go. It doesn't bother her, she is forgiving of him. As unlikely as it seems, she believes that Joseph needs her friends.h.i.+p more than she needs his.

On a damp evening when the thought of another rich meal in an uptown restaurant fills her with gloom, she suggests that they go to the movies.

"Can't bear being in a crowd in the dark," Joseph says. "You never know who you will be sitting next to in a movie house."

"You mean ordinary people, Joseph?"

"Well, perhaps."

"I'm ordinary."

"Rubbish, dear girl. You are extraordinary."

She likes to believe that her reasons for being with Joseph are because he is entertaining, because they are both lonely, because they have developed an intimacy outside of the physical. There is truth in this, she knows, but she isn't sure these days that she doesn't enjoy the money thing a bit too much, the presents of clothes and jewelry that Joseph has begun buying her. She fights with herself about it, but she is seduced by the beauty that money buys, the fineness of the life it offers. She appreciates the luxury of decent food, the balanced weight of silver cutlery, and the crisp white linen of restaurant tablecloths. It's hard to resist the treat of fresh flowers and the expensive perfumes that Joseph sends on such a regular basis that she is on first-name terms with the delivery boys who bring them to her door.

"You mustn't," she had said at first as the presents began arriving. Even to her the words had sounded hollow, halfhearted. Would Tamura be disappointed in her? Is she disappointed in herself? Is this who a girl like her truly is?

Joseph takes no notice of her protests. He enjoys buying her presents, enriching her life, he thinks.

"We'll need to buy you a dress, something wonderful. I've tickets for Petrushka." He waves them at her. "You're going to love it."

And she does love it, is reliving it in her head in the cab on the way home, so that she is shocked out of her reverie when they reach her building to see an ambulance parked outside with its doors open, the neighbors gathered on the sidewalk.

"It's Mrs. Copeland," a gray-haired man in his dressing gown calls to her. "They're bringing her body out now."

Her hand flies to her mouth, she shakes her head, begins to tremble.

"Are you sure it's her?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. 'Less she's got a twin. I'm the one who found her."

She hasn't seen her friend for a couple of days and feels guilty now, responsible somehow. Had Mrs. Copeland been feeling ill in those two days, had she called out for help and found none?

"Did she slip in the shower?" she asks.

"No, she had a weak heart, you know?"

She hadn't known, Mrs. Copeland had never mentioned an unreliable heart to her.

"I found her in the hallway," the old man boasts. "She had her key in her hand, couldn't tell if she was on her way in or out."

It's hard news to take. She will never see Mrs. Copeland again. She will never talk with her, or laugh at her jokes, never again buy her little treats. Mrs. Copeland, like Tamura, had loved candy.

She is stunned, the joy of the evening, her delight in Petrushka evaporated. She had forgotten how easy it is to lose people, how separation comes so swiftly.

Seeing how upset she is, Joseph touches her shaking shoulder.

"Come home with me, Satomi," he offers. "You don't want to be on your own tonight. It's obviously been a shock."

"No, but will you come inside with me, Joseph? Just for a little while."

He is repelled by the room's dimensions, its shabbiness, and the rooming-house smell of the place. But he sets to making her tea, pained at her empty cupboards, the dime-fed gas fire.

He thinks of his s.p.a.cious Art Deco duplex on Fifth Avenue, of the stylish straight-limbed furniture, the pale rugs, and the discreet lighting. The walls there are hung with the clean lines of Cocteau drawings and naive paintings. There's nothing on Satomi's dingy walls, except a small mirror in a chipped frame. While he can walk through his apartment unimpeded by clutter, go from room to room forgetting even how many he has, she hardly has s.p.a.ce to breathe in the doll's-house scale of hers. He has glimpsed her poverty, and it's meaner than he'd thought.

"It's very beautiful," Satomi says on her first visit to Joseph's home. "It's the perfect apartment."

She is seeing it at its best, on one of those flushed Manhattan evenings when the zodiacal light lends beauty to the skyline of the metropolis, when the palaces of Ninety-first Street, as Joseph calls them, seem washed with gold.

"It is, isn't it?" he says, satisfied. "It's the most beautiful apartment in New York, I think."

She is good at seeing his melancholia off, a thing he suffers from on and off. He loves that she approves of the understated style of the place, that she matches that style, looks right in it. He has no idea that she doesn't feel right in it, doesn't feel at ease in its lofty s.p.a.ce. Her emotions are still informed by Manzanar, her eyes still measure on its scale.

On later visits, though, when she is used to it, comparisons with the camp fade. She looks forward to being there, to being with Joseph, and now that she knows that there's no criticism in it, she even finds his teachy side charming. The contrasts in her life are great between what was and what is, but then, as they are always saying in New York, Only in America.

As for Joseph, he marvels that her single company is often enough for him. It's a first. He is popular among his set, but apart from Hunter, he has never sought particular friends.h.i.+ps. They are too intrusive, too exposing.

He likes to watch Satomi reading, her slim legs tucked beneath her on his low sofas, unconsciously graceful as he might have arranged her there himself, just so. If he has to, he could live with a girl like her. And he does have to. What kind of man, after all, would break a promise to a dying father?

On the night he decides to propose, he catches sight of himself in a mirror, eyes gleaming, lips dry, and recognizes the expression. He has glimpsed it before and knows it appears when he gambles against the odds. It's the look that lets him down in poker. Satomi will be astonished, taken off guard, his timing may be wrong, but there's danger too in waiting. How much longer will she continue to cruise along with him before some stranger, some more appealing man, comes along and takes them both by surprise?

"Well, I have to say this place certainly suits you, Sati." The words sound rehea.r.s.ed, as they have been. "You look at home here."

"Do I?"

"Mmm, just as we are with each other, wouldn't you say?"

"Sure, I would, Joseph."

He pops the cork of what he hopes will be a celebratory bottle of Dom Perignon. He would prefer his usual evening martini, crushed ice and more vermouth than gin so that it is extra dry, no olive, but a lemon twist, and leave the bitters out. And she might enjoy a whiskey more, but he wants to do things by the book, so champagne it has to be.

"Champagne, dear girl," he says, clinking their gla.s.ses.

"Are we celebrating something?"

She senses his excitement, his unaccustomed nervousness, and sits up straight, unsettled now herself. As he hovers with the gla.s.ses, she is suddenly filled with affection for him. Joseph is not as cool as he would like her to think. In those times when he spares her his sophistication, he is more like a little boy, sweet and naughty, entirely unpredictable.

"We may be," he says hopefully. "Celebrating something, I mean."

He hates that he can't be honest with her, but he can't risk the truth of it. Learning that he doesn't want to bed her or any other woman might scare her off. He consoles himself with the truth that he cares for her, loves her in his way. And if she accepts him she will benefit from the arrangement too. She is alone in the world, vulnerable. He will take care of her, share his wealth, save her from that squalid little room with its mean gas ring, the sink with the black crack running its length, harboring goodness knows what germs. He was meant to find her, she was meant for better things.

He thinks briefly of the boy he slept with the night before. He had been less than honest with him too. He hardly remembers his name, any of their names. It's a long list, after all. He takes a guess at Chuck. Chuck had it in spades, all right, the look that gets him every time, full lips, snake hips, the walk. The look he likes, the character not so much.

Joseph had long ago given up the battle of fighting his nature, but still he is torn between the sensual and the intellectual, and the boy had been quite stupid, had spoiled the pleasure of the act by talking too much.

"I can come again. Tonight, if you like. Shall I come tonight?" He had made a joke about the coming bit, but it had sounded too much like pleading, for Joseph to agree.

"No, I am going abroad," he lied. "I'll find you when I return."

It's remarkable to him how quickly the joy disappears the moment the coupling is over, a switch flicked. He never hangs around for long. All he wants is to hoof it to the familiar surrounds of Li's hangout, where, since he was eighteen years old, opium dreams have guaranteed oblivion.

"Joseph? Are we celebrating something?" she prompts.

"I hope so."

"You're being mysterious. Come on, tell me what it is."

"It's just this, Sati, and I don't want to make a big deal of it ... but here goes. I want you to know that I won't ever be careless with you. Whatever happens between us, I'll make sure that nothing like Manzanar ever touches you again. If you let me, I'll be your protector, your best friend."

"Oh, Joseph, there's no need. I-"

"Let me finish, Sati." He runs his hand through his hair, finding himself more nervous than he could have imagined. "More champagne, let me fill your gla.s.s."

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" She's on edge now, guesses what's coming, hopes she's wrong.

"I'm trying to ask you to marry me. I want you to marry me, dear girl."

He hadn't planned on blurting it out so bluntly. He can see that she is stunned.