Mas sat in the back of Tug’s rental car with a Triple A map spread out over his knees. He didn’t bother to fasten his seat belt, although Tug had asked him to before they left the curb of Carlton Street at nine o’clock in the morning. But that was two bathroom stops ago, and Tug had apparently forgotten to reissue his gentle reminders.
Tug was in the driver’s seat, and Mari was in the passenger’s. She had her own map, but said she didn’t need it, because she had been to Seabrook before, to film the reunion. “It was a few years ago,” she said to Tug. “It was organized mostly by Japanese Americans, all celebrating when they first came to work at Seabrook Farms in 1945.”
Mas shook his head. The Nisei were always celebrating this, celebrating that. When Chizuko was alive, she and Mas were invited to their share of twenty-five-year wedding anniversaries. Usually they took place in the back of a Japanese restaurant, where they were served limp tempura and rolled sushi with rice a little hard from being left out too long. In front of each place setting was usually an origami crane or a dollar bill folded up like a stiff kaeru, frog, the symbol of luck among the luckless Nisei and Sansei.
But it didn’t stop with wedding anniversaries. There were yakudoshi celebrations, so-called bad-year birthdays (thirty-three for girls, forty-two for boys), and then those events when sixty-year-old fools dressed up in bright-red caps and vests to prove that they were born again.
And then there were those camp reunions. Why did they want to remember being locked up together during World War II? Mas had wondered. Tug explained to him that most of the organizers for these reunions had been young, teenagers in camp. Their memories were much sweeter than those of their parents, who were now gone.
“So, whatsu dis Seabrook, anyways?” Mas asked. He could barely find it on the map. New Jersey was shaped like a flattened boxing glove, and Seabrook was located on the bottom tip, right underneath PHILADELPHIA, a city in all capitals.
“There’s nothing much there anymore,” explained Mari, who pushed her sunglasses up on her nose. “But it once was one of the centers of the vegetable canning industry. They called this Charles Seabrook the Spinach King.” Mari went on to describe Mr. Seabrook’s grand scheme of workers on the run from the Great Depression, Stalin, communists, and, of course, American internment camps.
“Knew some guys in the service who had family over in Seabrook,” commented Tug. “Mr. Seabrook and his staff recruited them right out of camp. Even if they worked long hours, it was better than being behind barbed wire, I guess.”
Mas knew what kind of deal that was. Work like a dog for nothing. He looked out the window and saw great empty spaces, tilled land ready to give birth to green vegetables. Accumulated water stayed still in the furrows, and now and then Mas saw a lone creek or marsh. The gray skyline was held up by lines of trees, their bare branches resembling a witch’s gnarled hair. Now that they were away from the hubbub of New York, Mas thought that he would be relieved. But instead his stomach felt on edge, as if there would be no place to go in case of trouble.
They continued on the New Jersey Turnpike until they hit a smaller highway and then eventually transferred to Route 77. More trees and then a lone white building, looking prim and proper like something from America’s pioneering days. Mas noticed a Japanese motif on the front of the building.
It was as if Mari had read his mind. “Yup, that’s the Buddhist temple,” she said. “A lot of the members are non-Japanese, I think. Even had a hakujin woman minister once.”
Mas pursed his lips. Everything took on another angle here on the East Coast.
“The church must have been established around World War Two, when all the Japanese came,” Tug said.
Mari nodded. “A lot of the Japanese have moved out to New York and other places,” she explained. “But they do have a JACL chapter here. Their annual chow mein dinner sells out every year.” Japanese Americans and Chinese food, the traditional combination. Funny remnants, here and there, thought Mas. One big shot recruits workers, and look what happens. Buddhist temples and chow mein fund-raisers. People and cultural practices that were being transplanted like weeds stuck on the blades of a lawn mower.
Mari then gave Tug more directions-“Turn right, then left”-and finally they parked in an open lot next to a brick building with a yellow steeple. The steeple was boxed in by a fancy fence and topped with a weather vane.
Before Mas could ask, his daughter said, “This is the city township building, you know, like their city hall. And also the location of the Seabrook museum.”
This was what they had driven more than two hours for? Mas asked himself.
They piled out of the rental car. Like a roll-away bed, Mas hunched over to get out of the two-door sedan and then straightened up in the parking lot, pounding his sore back with the back of his right hand.
“It’s down here.” Mari pointed to the side of the building, where stairs led down to a yellow door. One by one, they entered: first Mari, then Mas, and finally Tug.
They went down a hallway and then entered a brightly lit, airy room. A banner reading Seabrook USA hung from the ceiling. Familiar Seabrook Farms labels had been framed and placed on the walls. Mas headed straight for a diorama of the entire operation, which included a water tower and a factory marked by a long chimney. This Seabrook had once been quite an operation. Mas had seen his share of rice paddies in Hiroshima, lettuce fields in Watsonville, and rows of tomato plants in various towns in Texas. This Seabrook made all of those farms look like someone’s backyard vegetable garden.
“Hey, Mari,” said a young Sansei man in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans. His hair was all shaved off like an obosan at a Buddhist temple. The rest of him looked strong and healthy, the type to be hiking in the hills, not hiding in the basement in a small town called Seabrook. He walked around a counter and gave Mari a quick hug. “Haven’t seen you in ages.”
“About five years.” Mari’s face seemed flushed, as if she had been in an onsen, a hot-spring bath. “This is Tug Yamada, and my dad, Mas Arai. Kevin Tachibana.”
Kevin had a firm grip, and Mas was surprised to feel that his hand was callused.
“You a farmer?” Mas couldn’t help but blurt out.
“Dad!” Mari said. “He’s a professor.”
“No, it’s quite all right. I’ve bought an old house outside of Philly. Been renovating it myself. I guess I have some home-improvement battle scars.” He grinned, and Mas took a liking to him instantly. A Sansei, smart, and even worked with his hands on his own house. Why couldn’t Mari have fallen for a man like this?
“So you’re the boss today,” Mari said.
“Well, it’s my spring break. I’m just filling in while the director’s on vacation.” Kevin looked at Mari’s left hand. “Well, how are you? Married, I see.”
Mari, thankfully, did not have a matching tattoo ring, but a simple silver one instead.
“Yeah,” Mari said. “And one baby.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Three months old.” Mari’s eyes grew watery.
“Wow. I guess you’ll want to get back to your baby ASAP. So, let’s see-you’re doing research on Kazzy Ouchi, right?”
Mari nodded. “You mentioned that Kazzy had contacted you about six months ago.”
“Well, since I’m doing my research on prewar Nisei in New York and New Jersey, he wanted to meet with me. He specifically wanted to know about this Asa Sumi.”
“Yes, the mother of Seiko Sumi, right?”
“Yeah, Seiko lives up in Fort Lee. Really nice woman. Have you met her?”
Mari nodded.
Mas noticed small beads of perspiration on his daughter’s nose. Whenever she was caught in a lie or a tight situation, her nose would begin to sweat.
“Well, anyway, apparently Seiko’s mother had worked as a housekeeper over in the Waxley House back in the thirties. I guess she worked under Kazzy’s mother, Emily, and even filled in when Emily was pregnant. During the war, Asa was over here, in Seabrook, so I guess he wondered if we had any information.”
“Did you?”
“Well, Seiko had showed us a journal.”
“Yes,” Mari murmured. Mas also remembered some sort of diary on display in the high-rise apartment.
“She didn’t give to us, of course, but did leave some sample pages. She wanted to know if we could translate it for her or at least find someone who could. Unfortunately, I can’t read kanji, only some katakana and hiragana, you know? My Japanese is terrible; I took Italian for my PhD. For a while I was introducing myself as Tachibana- san to visiting scholars, until I found out that no Japanese puts ‘ san ’ after their own name.”
Mas wasn’t surprised about the young man’s inability to speak Japanese. He was third-generation, after all. Even a Nisei like Tug didn’t know much. The World War II camps and racism in general had made the Japanese lose their language. Why try to retain it if it was just one more thing that the government and people would hold against them?
Mari apparently felt that way. “But we’re not Japanese. We’re American,” she said.
“That’s true.” Kevin laughed. “Maybe it was my subconscious, attempting to assert its Americanness, huh? Anyway, I couldn’t read the thing. Neither could most of the staff. But we are planning to apply for a grant to do the translation. Seiko couldn’t afford it otherwise; she’s a retired nurse and also a perfectionist. Her Japanese is limited to a few phrases she learned from her parents. Simple stuff that I also remember hearing from my grandparents. But no writing or reading of kanji. Seiko wanted it professionally done. She told us that she would keep the original for now, but that we could have access to the journal anytime we wanted.”
“Do you have the sample pages?”
“Oh, yeah, I dug them out for you. I have it in the back. Hold on a second.” He disappeared through a door to a storage area.
Meanwhile, Tug had wandered to a photo exhibit of Seabrook, and Mas joined him. One photo had a line of women, their heads covered with white caps like the ones nurses used to wear, sorting vegetables on a conveyor belt. Men and teenagers picking beans. Nisei singles dancing, twists of crepe paper overhead.
Tug pointed to a black-and-white photo of girls, both Nisei and hakujin, standing together in Girl Scout uniforms. “Kind of like a mini United Nations. Jamaicans. Hakujin escaping the Dust Bowl.”
Mas stared at an image of a line of hakujin women wearing headbands and long, flowing dresses with geometric patterns. “Theysu Americans?” Mas asked.
Tug examined the photo in front of Mas. “Oh, no. There were a lot of Estonians who were here. Their country was over by Russia. The Soviets occupied them, then the Germans, then the Soviets again. Some escaped to come here in fishing boats.”
“ Hakujin boat people?” Mas was surprised. People were running away from their troubles any way they could. It didn’t matter if you were black, Asian, Latino, or even hakujin. “Dat Anna Grady not American. Sheezu come from somewhere else.”
“Maybe she’s Estonian.”
Mas nodded, and Tug took out his notebook from his pocket and jotted some notes. Health inspector turned detective, Tug took on his new role with relish.
Kevin finally returned to the counter with some papers in hand. Tug and Mas could overhear him and Mari struggle with the Japanese.
“Let’s see, hmm, well, this is the date, right? Damn, the year’s written by era. What are they again?” asked Mari.
“Meiji, Taisho, Showa,” Kevin recited. “Showa is during Emperor Hirohito’s reign. Starts around 1926, I think.”
Mari held a page close to her face. “These are the characters for Showa. How does it work again? The year in which the era begins minus one plus the number that follows the era?”
“Confusing.”
“I know,” said Mari. “It’s just like when babies are born in Japan; they come out a year old already. We had a heck of a time figuring out what year my grandmother was born after she died.”
“Dad”-Mari finally called over Mas-“can you help us with this?”
Mas got out his reading glasses, not that eager to serve as a linguist. He looked at Tug, Mari, and then Kevin. If Mas was the most literate one of them all, they were in deep trouble.
The pages were written in a woman’s fine script. She must have had some kind of education, because the strokes from her pen were definite and crisp. Each sentence ran straight from the top to the bottom without the aid of lined paper.
“Youzu start off here,” Mas told Mari and Kevin, pointing to the far right side.
“Dad, that much we know. What does it say?”
“Novemba sixteen, letsu see, 1930. Kumori, gray day. Ame, rain. Go buysu beef from whatchacallit-”
“Butcher?” offered Tug.
“Yah, butcha. So dis person-girl, right?-went to buysu beef for some kind of dinner. Stew. For, letsu see. Wakusuri.”
“The Waxleys!” Mari exclaimed.
“Yah, Waxley family, I guess.”
Mas flipped through more pages. All notes about preparing meals and rooms to clean. The writer was obviously some sort of housekeeper, like Chizuko, because all she wrote about was making the Waxley family more comfortable in the Prospect Park house.
Mas dragged his dirt-lined fingernail up and down the lines. This woman was wired to be chanto, to take her work seriously.
“Pretty tsumaranai ” was Mas’s final analysis.
“What?” Kevin asked.
“Boring,” Mari translated.
“Well, it’s her day-to-day activities.” Kevin shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you have more pages?” Mari asked.
“No, those are the only ones.”
“Can we make a copy?”
“Well, normally, we need to get permission from the donor. But since I know you-”
“Thanks, Kevin.” Mari followed Kevin to the photocopy machine. Kevin flicked a button on the machine. The photocopier purred and hummed as it warmed up.
“When I showed this to Kazzy, he got pretty excited,” said Kevin. A flash of bright light leaked from the edges of the photocopier’s glass cover. Why would these daily accounts have been of interest to Kazzy? wondered Mas. Maybe it was like the young professor said-Kazzy had known that he was going to die soon, so he wanted to piece together as much of his past as possible.
“Is there any mention of Kazzy in there?” Mari asked.
“I think some cursory stuff. He said that he could probably do the translation himself in exchange for getting access to the whole journal.”
“He didn’t have time to do a translation job. He was busy with the garden,” said Mari.
“Well, he was pretty adamant. He was on a mission to reclaim his childhood. Once you hit seventy, eighty, you’re dealing with your own mortality.” Kevin then realized that he was in the company of two seventy-something-year-olds and covered his face with his right callused hand.
Tug laughed, his eyes dissolving into thin sideways crescents. “Mas and I know our days are numbered.”
Mas grunted. Everybody’s days were numbered, he thought, both old and young. The thing was, you didn’t know what number you were dealt until it was too late.
“Well, anyway”-Kevin recovered from his embarrassment-“I provided him with Seiko’s phone number and address, but I think that she was pretty resistant.”
“Really? But she was willing to deal with you.”
“Yeah, but we’re a nonprofit institution. I think Seiko was a little taken aback by Kazzy’s aggressiveness. I mean, here’s this silk mogul who keeps bothering her about her mother’s diary. Even knowing that he and his family are mentioned in there, she was reluctant to help him.”
“So do you know what ended up happening?”
“I’m not sure, actually. Like I said, I met with Kazzy about six months ago, and Seiko was complaining to me about Kazzy’s constant calls soon after. But about four months ago, it all stopped. Hadn’t heard much of anything, until the reports of Kazzy’s death came in and you got in touch.” Kevin handed pages of the photocopied journal to Mari. “So, what’s the deal with Kazzy’s death?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was he bumped off, like people are saying? Some hakujin neighbor, or his hakujin gardener, right?”
After seeing the fields and furrows, Mas felt a little more open to the landscape of Seabrook, but the ground still seemed foreign. California had sandy loam, loose soil that allowed for the best strawberries and flowers in the nation, but everything here seemed dense, immovable. Sticky adobe soil. A farmer’s nightmare.
Even as the sun was starting to set, the open space didn’t seem right. Usually dusk brought a hush, a fuzzy hopefulness that with the end of this day, the next would be better. All Mas felt right now, however, was dread. That somehow crows and nocturnal pests would crowd into the fields to take them over.
They stopped by a small roadside diner that Kevin had recommended. Mari stayed outside for a while to call the hospital and check on Takeo. When she joined Mas and Tug in a red leather booth, her face looked relaxed. “Takeo’s doing well,” she said, slipping in beside Tug. “He’ll be coming home tomorrow.”
“Thank God,” Tug said, grabbing her hand. She rested her small head on Tug’s shoulder. With her short hair, she looked like a sparrow digging into her nest. “Thanks, Uncle Tug.”
Mas felt awkward. Shouldn’t he be the one comforting his daughter? He should be happy with the news about Takeo, yet, at the same time, he felt painfully inadequate. “Yah, good news, good news,” he finally said.
The simple menus-a single page laminated in plastic-came with hot coffee in heavy white ceramic cups.
“Dad, you should order the Philly cheesesteak. That’s the specialty here.”
“Oh, yah,” Mas said, grateful that his daughter was thinking about what he might enjoy.
He was surprised, however, when the waitress placed a long sandwich, instead of a slab of red meat, on a plate in front of him. Nanda, sandwich? I could have a sandwich any day, he thought. But today should not end with monku, a litany of complaints. Saying nothing, Mas stuffed his mouth with one end of the sandwich.
Mas was pleasantly surprised. “ Oishii, ” he declared. The bread was soft, just as he liked it. And the steak, tender, like slices of sukiyaki meat. And plenty of fried onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese to bring the flavors together.
“See, Dad, I told you,” said Mari, chewing on her sandwich. “I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”
Tug had remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the whole meal. He excused himself and left the table for a long time, long enough for Mas to worry that the cheesesteak had upset Tug’s stomach. If that was the case, it was only a matter of time before Mas and Mari were its next victims.
Had it been worth it to come all this way? Mas wondered. “Find out whatcha need to find out ova at the museum?” he asked Mari.
“Well, at least we know that this journal is important in some way. But how is the question.”
Father and daughter discussed various options. Had Anna and Seiko discovered some damaging information about Kazzy’s background? And if they had, what had they done with that information? Mas didn’t understand Kazzy’s relationship with Anna, either. Why had he broken up with her?
Tug finally returned to the table. “Let’s go,” he stated more than asked. He didn’t even put up a fight when Mas went to the cashier and paid the bill, grabbing some toothpicks to get at any stray pieces of meat.
After they loaded into the car, Tug guided them back on the road, checking his rearview mirror every ten seconds.
“Sumptin’ wrong, Tug?” Mas finally asked.
“Do you have your seat belt on?”
“Yah,” Mas lied.
“Good. I didn’t want to mention anything earlier, but I think we’re being followed.”
“What?” Both Mas and Mari looked behind them and saw a dark car, one of those new, roundish Impalas, nothing like the classic ones of the sixties.
“I noticed him in the parking lot of the Seabrook museum. He followed us to the restaurant, and now he’s right behind us.”
Mas fumbled to slip on his seat belt.
“Thought maybe it was just some kind of coincidence, you know. I mean, the restaurant seems kind of popular. But he just stayed in his car, waiting. I saw him from the bathroom window.”
No wonder Tug was in the benjo for so long, thought Mas.
“Speed up-” Mari ordered from the passenger seat.
“I’m going over the speed limit as it is, Mari.”
“Uncle Tug, I’m serious. Put your foot on the gas.”
Tug had no choice. He followed Mari’s instructions, only to have the Impala follow right behind and practically hug their bumper.
The driver was no longer hiding in the back of parking lots. It was no secret. He was after them.
“Turn,” ordered Mari, motioning to a dirt road, a break in the fields, on the right.
Tug swerved the car, and Mas was then happy for the muddy, sticky ground, which kept the car from jackknifing. Yet the same soil also kept the Impala on track.
“Maybe we should talk to him,” Tug said.
“Uncle Tug, forgive me for doing this.” Mari unfastened her seat belt and then Tug’s, climbing over his massive lap. “But move over.”
With Mari at the wheel, the rental car first lost a little speed. The seat was too far back for her, so she held herself forward with the steering wheel and then pushed her foot as far as she could on the gas pedal. The car revved and then suddenly pitched forward, causing Tug to hit his head against the car visor. “Hang on!” Mari cried. She turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, and Mas felt his body lurch to the side, papers from the Seabrook museum flying in every direction.
As the car straightened out, both Mas and Tug realized what Mari was doing. She had made a U-turn, and now the Impala was heading straight for them.
“Mari-” Tug had fastened his seat belt long ago and was shielding his neck with his hands.
“I dare him. I dare him,” she muttered, along with a string of expletives whose meaning Mas wouldn’t even dare to imagine.
Mas wasn’t about to die with his eyes closed, shivering in the back of the car. No, if his only child was going to look death straight in the eye, he was going to, too.
The Impala continued forward. Just when it looked like their front bumpers would crash into each other, the Impala swerved to the right. The side of the Impala brushed past the rental car, snapping the side mirror forward on its hinge. Mas looked out the side window. The car bounced into the sleeping fields of young spinach. The engine stalled and then revved up-the Impala was on the move again.
“He’s going to expect us to take the Turnpike. I’ll just go through Philadelphia,” said Mari, pushing the car seat forward and then adjusting the side mirror back in position.
Tug lifted his head, and Mas knew that he had been praying to his Kamisama. Whatever had saved them, Mari’s guts or God’s grace, Mas wasn’t going to bother to figure it out. At this point, he would accept anything they could get.
They moved from the country to mansions with neatly kept lawns to finally the middle of the city. They rode on a massive bridge, a crisscross of metal over a dark, overwhelming river lined by factories and steam pipes. Mas felt as if Philadelphia were going to swallow them alive.
Mari’s idea apparently worked, because there was no sign of the Impala anymore.
“Didja get a good look at him?” Mas asked Tug.
“Little bit. Hakujin. Young. Wore a beanie cap.”
“I’ve knowsu dat guy.”
Mari almost swerved the car into the next lane. “What?”
Tug also seemed surprised.
“Riley,” Mas sputtered out.
Tug took out his notebook, his pen stuck in the spiral. “You sure, Mas?”
“Who the hell is Riley?” Mari demanded.
Mas knew that he couldn’t keep things from Mari any longer. He told her about following Riley to the factory with the red door, the gun, and the boy’s threats.
“Phillip’s behind this,” Mari announced. “He thinks we know something that we obviously don’t, or at least don’t realize it. But one damn thing is for sure”-both Tug and Mas cringed as Mari let loose a string of foul words-“he picked the wrong people to tangle with.”
When they finally got into Brooklyn Heights, Mari stopped the car in the hospital parking lot. Leaving the engine on, she got out. Both Tug and Mas got out as well to stretch their aging limbs, change seats, and say good night to Mari.
Mari hugged Tug first, her small body swallowed up in Tug’s grizzly bear one, and then surprisingly went to Mas and hugged him, too. “Thanks, Dad,” she whispered in his ear. “You did good.”
As he watched his daughter enter the hospital, Mas was amazed by her resilience. Her husband a suspect in a murder, her son hospitalized, and her life even on the line, yet she still had the presence to give two broken-down old men an embrace.
“I did nutin’,” he said out loud.
“What, Mas?” Tug waited in the driver’s seat.
“Nutin’,” Mas said. “Nutin’ at all.”