Clark and Division Read online

  I carefully laid everything out. A few pairs of silk stockings, a precious commodity. She hadn’t had those in camp, for sure. Three other dresses, including a fancier one that I had never seen before. Her polka-dot dress was missing. An album for war bond stamps—I remembered that she had purchased that in Los Angeles before we left for Manzanar. The album had spaces for 187 ten-cent stamps, red ones featuring a minuteman from the American Revolutionary War. Rose had neatly mounted dozens of them until there was one open page left. I carefully unwrapped the strawberry jam jar from Rose’s scarf and placed it on our table, a sign that Rose was still with us, somehow.

  What I was most eager to look at was the diary. Had Rose actually used it? She wasn’t the type to write things down and reflect about what she had done. I opened it and a piece of torn paper fell to the ground. The ripped fragment had a red number, 20, printed on it. The number was meaningless to me and I figured that Rose had used the paper to mark a page. After placing the scrap in the back of the diary, I started flipping through random pages.

  The sight of her familiar long and loopy handwriting made me dissolve into tears. With all the emotion pressing down on me, I didn’t think that I would be able to read anything tonight. As I closed the diary, I noticed that there was a gap in the binding. Pages had been ripped out and I couldn’t help but wonder if they had held some secrets to why my sister was now dead.

  Chapter 5

  Today is the first day of my new great adventure. Chicago.

  Back at the produce market, I would sometimes make calls for Papa to Chicago. I’d make my voice high-pitched and refined so that I sounded Caucasian instead of Japanese. My high school English teacher said I had a nice voice, that I could have been a radio announcer, even. Can you imagine such a thing?

  My sister, Aki, made this diary for me, so I suppose I should try and use it. She knows that I’m not one to write things down, but maybe I’ll prove her wrong. There’s no one to talk to in this train, anyway. Oh, but it’s lunchtime, so maybe I’ll check out the dining car. I’ve never dined on the train before.

  I couldn’t get out of bed the next day. Mom and Pop had risen early and were dressed in their second-best clothes—their first-best clothes had been the ones they’d worn on the train to Chicago.

  “Where are you going?” I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and watched as Pop fastened his watch and Mom retrieved her purse. I had taken the time to roll my hair in pin curls the night before, and as the bobby pins had come out, the curls hung loose like giant spiders around my head.

  “The resettlement office. Tou-san and I need to find jobs.”

  I pulled myself up from the bed and followed them into the dining room in my cotton pajamas. This would be the first time my mother had ever looked for paid work. But we certainly needed the money. There was literally nothing to eat or drink in the apartment. The tap water from both the bath faucet and the sink were brownish. And the refrigerator was still in need of a block of ice.

  All night I had debated whether I should tell my parents about what the coroner had told me. What if there was a follow-up story in the newspaper that mentioned the abortion? What a shock that would be. Abortion was against the law. I had heard of girls in my high school getting pregnant, but they were usually sent away to some relative’s house in the middle of nowhere. One of Rose’s classmates apparently got an abortion from her doctor, but it was so hush-hush that most of us could not even speak of it.

  In camp, I had read out loud a brief story in the JACL’s house newspaper, the Pacific Citizen, about an Issei doctor in the free part of Arizona who had been sentenced to prison for performing an abortion on a hakujin woman. “A-la-la,” my mother pronounced in judgment. More than by the word “abortion,” she was scandalized by the words “prison term.” It was clear that if you had an abortion, you didn’t speak of it and certainly shouldn’t get caught.

  How could I say anything to my parents?

  I’d stored Rose’s suitcase in the linen closet so that my parents wouldn’t encounter it right away. Their hearts and minds were so tender that they didn’t need further reminders that she wasn’t with us anymore.

  “The funeral arrangements still need to be made,” my mother said before leaving.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. My mother’s crease-ridden face immediately softened. “What day should I request? The weekend?”

  “The sooner, the better.”

  “You mean even as early as tomorrow?”

  Mom glanced at Pop, not for guidance, but to monitor his state of mind. “Tomorrow will be fine—”

  “Unless we find shigoto,” Pop chimed in.

  Mom and I knew that it would not be easy for two old Japanese immigrants to find a decent job, specifically one that didn’t involve cooking or cleaning.

  “Well, ittekimasu,” my mother said—just as she did every time she left the house; so normal, so everyday. The Japanese phrase felt like a warm salve on my neck. Pop, on the other hand, bobbed his head as if I were a random acquaintance he happened to pass on the street.

  I took a quick shower in the brown water and had changed into one of my cotton dresses when I heard a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?” I asked, fastening the last button, closest to the hollow of my neck.

  “Harriet Saito. I live on the second floor.” The voice sounded bright yet firm, reminding me of a grammar school teacher’s.

  I unlocked the door. Harriet was an average-sized Nisei woman like me with an updo of dark-brown curls. I was embarrassed of my disastrous pin curls. I needed to know who did her hair.

  “I work with Mr. Tamura in the resettlement office.” She offered up a thermos and something in a brown bag. “I thought that you might need some food.”

  Gratefully receiving the items, I invited her in. In the thermos was hot coffee and in the bag were a copy of the Pacific Citizen, a loaf of bread, some strawberry preserves. I recognized the jar: it was the same as the one Rose had been using as a cup.

  “Oh, thank you so much.” These mundane gifts felt more valuable than gold.

  “And don’t worry about Rose’s death being mentioned in the Pacific Citizen. I overheard Mr. Tamura saying that he was planning to talk to them. He’ll work to keep it out of the Free Press, too.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. While I wanted to protect my sister’s memory and my family’s privacy, especially from the gossipmongers in camp, were we doing Rose a disservice by erasing her death?

  Harriet must have sensed my discomfort because she directed her attention to our kitchenette, checking our hot plate and opening the rickety refrigerator. “You’ll need some ice,” she declared, and recommended an iceman in one of Mr. Tamura’s directories.

  We sat down at the table and I absorbed all the daily living resources that she had to share. For hairstyling, she recommended a couple of beauty shops, including the one in the Mark Twain Hotel. “The family was in Amache, the camp in Colorado. They’ll give you a discount as you settle in.”

  I slowly sipped the coffee in the thermos cup, letting each bit of it energize my body. Harriet looked down at the floor. “I lost my brother in the war. I know what you are going through.”

  My eyes grew wide. “In Europe?”

  She nodded. “Italy. A month ago.”

  “That’s so awful.”

  “My parents had a memorial service in camp. I was here, so I couldn’t go. Isn’t it strange that once you leave camp, they make it so much harder to get back in?”

  The irony of that burned in me. I also couldn’t stand the thought that Harriet’s parents had to say goodbye to their fallen son behind barbed wire.

  “He knows that I love him.” She used the present tense, as if he was still alive.

  She was trying to console me, but instead I felt a stab of anger. Why did our siblings have to die while we were torn away from our
homes?

  I screwed the cup back on the thermos. “I plan on going to the police station today,” I announced.

  “Why?”

  “I need to collect my sister’s belongings.”

  “Mr. Tamura can get all of those things for you. So you don’t have to deal with all that ugliness.”

  “No, I need to.” Harriet might have been able to make her peace with her brother’s death from a distance, but I wasn’t like her.

  “Mr. Tamura also says that he can loan your family the money for the mortuary and funeral.”

  Pop would resist the offer, but it wasn’t like we had any alternatives. We’d each been given twenty-five dollars from the WRA when we left, and I had about ten dollars from my job in the Supply Department at Manzanar. Most of that had gone toward the apartment.

  “Go to Klaner’s. It’s a couple of blocks away,” Harriet said. “Mr. Tamura has already spoken to them. You’ll be our first—” She couldn’t finish her sentence and I wasn’t going to help her. She pushed herself from her seat and awkwardly excused herself, saying that she was going to be late to work. I told her that she probably would be seeing my parents, who had set off for the resettlement office an hour ago.

  “Good thing that they went in early,” she said. “Sometimes the wait can take all day.”

  “If you happen to run into them, don’t mention anything about me going over to the police station.”

  “Of course, of course. I understand.” Harriet gave me a faint smile tinged with worry.

  According to the map, the police station was only about six blocks away. LaSalle was full of rooming houses and historic churches with high-pitched steeples and rounded wooden doors.

  The police station was in a three-level rectangular structure made of giant brick blocks. A row of seven long windows lined each floor, and steps led up to the covered front entrance. As I had rarely set foot in a police station in Los Angeles, entering one in a massive foreign city like Chicago shook me to my bones. I took a couple of deep breaths before going up the stairs.

  The doors burst open, revealing three hakujin women wearing tight clothing, their hair in disarray and their mouths smeared with lipstick. A couple of black men, one in a priest’s collar and holding a Bible, followed, but they didn’t seem at all connected with the women. Even before noon, the East Chicago Avenue police station was bustling.

  No one behind the counter batted an eyelash when I stated I was the sister of the woman killed at the Clark and Division train station. I was in a place whose business was tragic endings.

  I had to wait for at least half an hour. I watched as men, both hakujin and black, shadows of stubble on their faces, were escorted in by police officers in dark uniforms and caps. Finally, an officer with jet-black hair came my way. “Eat-o.” He pronounced my last name with a strong accent that I hadn’t heard before. As he drew closer, I saw his face was deeply lined, making him much older than I’d first thought.

  I stood up from the bench. “I’m Aki Ito.”

  He introduced himself as Officer Trionfo. His eyes were like a serpent’s as he scanned my body from my tan pumps to my blue day dress. The humidity was doing crazy things to my hair, and from the corner of my eye, I spied a stray curl springing out from my head.

  I explained that I was Rose’s sister and had come to collect her belongings.

  “You don’t want them,” he said. “All bloody and crusty. Pretty disgusting. Have your father or the War Relocation Authority man pick them up.”

  “No.” Pop was hanging by a string. I wasn’t going to subject him to this. And Ed Tamura was a bureaucrat. He was nice enough, but he wasn’t family. “No, I’d like to collect them myself.” I was embarrassed to hear my voice was thin and shaking, and the police officer responded with a knowing smile, as if he knew that I’d back down.

  This would not do at all. I was here as Rose’s advocate. And I wasn’t going to abandon her.

  Before I knew it, I was practically shouting. “Give me my sister’s things!”

  The policeman, perhaps shocked by my burst of emotion, grasped hold of his night stick. I imagined a rain of blows coming my way. I welcomed them—perhaps physical pain could mitigate the pain that I held inside. I squeezed my eyes shut but nothing happened. I opened them to see a middle-aged hakujin police officer standing between us. He wasn’t wearing a hat and his short-cropped hair was the color of honey.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Trionfo.

  “Ito’s kid sister. She wants her purse and dress. They’re all in tatters.”

  “Why don’t you get them out of the safe.”

  The officer locked eyes with this man I assumed must be his superior.

  “Officer Trionfo.” The blond man’s voice was stern.

  The policeman shook his head and took off down a staircase to the basement.

  “Thank you.” I pressed down on the pleats of my dress.

  “I’m Sergeant Graves.” Whereas Trionfo’s jacket had bunched up around his burly arms and middle, this man’s uniform rested flat on his lean body. All his visible skin was marked with faint freckles.

  “Aki Ito.”

  He seemed amused by my name, as if it were some kind of joke. He gestured toward the counter. “We’ll need some information from you to claim the items.”

  I filled out a form with my name, how I was related to Rose, and my address. I hadn’t had time to properly remember the street number and had to go into my purse to retrieve the information. “We arrived in Chicago two days ago,” I explained.

  The sergeant responded as if this was not news to him. “Well, welcome. I’m sorry that you had to arrive in our fine city like this.”

  “My sister didn’t kill herself,” I told him. “She wasn’t the type.”

  “You people have gone through a lot these last couple of years.”

  To hear it declared so plainly by a hakujin astonished me.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Yes, we have.” I waited to see if he would assure me that the investigation would be ongoing, but he was silent, a patient smile on his lips. Since he wasn’t making any promises, I felt like I needed to push more. “You will find out what happened to my sister.”

  Graves nodded. “Of course. This case isn’t closed. I have your information, so I’ll make sure to send a man to your apartment if there’s anything new.”

  I wasn’t optimistic that he would follow through, but at least he seemed more accessible than the other officer.

  “Where are you heading now?” he asked.

  “The mortuary. Klaner’s, I think they call it.”

  “Well, you’ll be in good hands there.” He excused himself, saying Officer Trionfo would return shortly with Rose’s belongings.

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  He gripped my hand goodbye. His fingers felt cool and comfortable, like he was used to gripping the hands of grieving women.

  Trionfo reappeared a few minutes later.

  “Here.” He threw a brown package in my face, grazing my forehead. More than anything I felt embarrassed to be treated so disrespectfully. I looked around to see if anyone had witnessed it, but everybody was fixated on other problems that seemed more immediate than mine.

  Klaner’s turned out to be an impressive facility at 1253 North Clark Street. It was a block north of Division Street and expansive, with its own elegant funeral parlor.

  Mom and Pop weren’t regular churchgoers and probably skewed more Buddhist than anything else, but Rose and I had attended the local Japanese Christian church in Glendale from time to time. All of us had written that we were Christian on our leave papers. It was easier for us that way.

  The funeral director, who had terrible pockmarks on the sides of his face, was attentive and called the coroner’s office to find out when Rose’s body could be released. My exposure to church in G
lendale helped me answer his questions about the service. “Psalms for the scripture reading,” I told him. “Something about God leading us to green pastures.”

  I couldn’t think of any hymns besides “Amazing Grace.” “Can we dispense with singing?” I finally said. “Maybe the organist can just play something.” The funeral director seemed a bit surprised by my request, yet wrote my directions down in his files nonetheless.

  “And she’ll need a resting place.”

  “Ah, we can cremate her and put her remains in an urn. You probably would like her close to you.”

  “We might want to bury her.”

  The hakujin man lowered his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to look at my face. He got up from his desk, spoke to another employee, and then got on the phone.

  Finally he returned. “You can have the funeral service here, but interment may be an issue.” I tried to keep up with what he was saying. “We’ll have to insist on cremation. Then you can determine where to place the ashes.”

  “Is it because we’re not from Chicago?” I asked.

  The funeral director’s hunched shoulders slumped further. His body language reminded me of Vivi Pelletier’s mother and all the others who messaged that the Japanese were not welcome. And sure enough, forced into a corner, he articulated what I feared. “At this particular time, cemeteries are not accepting Japanese bodies.”

  I didn’t have the energy to protest; if they were going to refuse Rose, I didn’t want her to be buried anywhere near here.

  “I recommend that you speak to these people.” He handed me a paper on which he had written Chicago Japanese Mutual Aid Society and a phone number. We made arrangements for the funeral to be held the day after next to allow time for them to get Rose’s body from the coroner’s office.

  After that appointment was over I headed for the diner, where I was supposed to meet Roy. I felt like a soggy tissue. From the desolation of Manzanar, Chicago had seemed like a light in the distance. But now that we were here, I could see it was a mirage of what we had desperately hoped for.