When I raised my head and looked around at the tree-lined street splashed with sun and shadow, I couldn’t for a moment remember any words in the English language, and I said something like, “Unnn-gah-unng.”
52
Miss Pearl retrieved her purse and closed it.
When I heard the clasp snap shut, I came to my feet, swayed, and steadied myself with the porch-steps handrail.
At the time, the peek into the purse stunned me, thrilled me, but also confused me.
As Miss Pearl got to her feet, I said, “What? What was that?”
“You know, Ducks.”
“No. I don’t. I’m confused. Amazed and confused and wow.”
“You only think you’re confused.”
“I know that I think I’m confused. And I am.”
“Your confusion is only on the surface, Ducks. Deep down, you understand, and that’s what counts. In time, your confusion will go away, and your deep-down understanding will rise to the surface.”
She descended the porch steps to the front walk. She had no need of the handrail.
I didn’t move, still half dizzy. “I wish you wouldn’t go.”
When she turned and smiled, standing there in her severe dark-gray suit and prim black hat, I thought of Mary Poppins. If she’d been carrying an umbrella instead of that huge handbag, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had opened it and caught a breeze and continued along the street at altitude.
“I can give you no more help. I’ve already given you more
than I ever should. You have to make your own future, day by day, with no rescues by me. As I said before, what happens next is up to all the people who live along my streets. Your part of it is up to you.”
“What if I make mistakes and people die?”
“People die every day. Wrong decisions are made, and they have consequences. Death is part of life. If you think about it, you were born into a world populated by the dead, because every one of them will die one day.”
She followed our front walk to the public sidewalk, turned right, waved at me, and walked away.
I watched her until the street trees and the shadows and sun glare and sheer distance allowed me no further glimpse of her.
Because I knew what I’d seen in her purse but not what it meant, because that understanding came much later, I won’t tell you at this point what the handbag contained. This is my life I’m talking, and I’ll talk it in the way that makes most sense to me. Everything in good time.
After Miss Pearl was lost to sight, I went unsteadily into the house to lie down on the living-room sofa until my dizziness fully passed.
I assured myself that no matter what happened, if disaster piled on calamity, everything would be okay in the long run. Meanwhile, on that fifth day of July 1967, nothing serious yet.
53
That same morning, by telephone, Mr. Tamazaki of the Daily News reached out to the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. In part of this ornate house of worship had been stored the belongings of some of those Californians sent to relocation camps during the war. A limited number of items were never reclaimed, and a curator looked after them even these years later. In addition, the curator maintained a lengthy list of the people who had been sent to the relocation camps, as well as a smaller list of those who wished for their whereabouts to be known to others who had endured the camps and who regularly updated their addresses with the temple.
Mr. Tamazaki wished to know if the temple might be aware of a former internee of any of the ten War Relocation Authority camps now living in or around Charleston, Illinois. Within an hour, he received a confirmation call. A woman named Setsuko Nozawa had been interned at the camp in Moab, Utah, and currently resided in Charleston. She had already agreed that her address and phone number could be shared with Mr. Tamazaki.
Mrs. Nozawa proved to be quite a talker. Mr. Tamazaki learned that she was twenty when released from Moab, that she was forty-four now and, with her husband, had become a successful entrepreneur. They owned a car wash, two dry-cleaning shops, and an apartment building. Their younger daughter was a sophomore at Northwestern University in Evanston. Their older daughter was a senior at Yale. And their son had begun work on his MBA at UCLA. She loved to play bridge, taught origami to interested friends, was learning French cooking from the book by Julia Child, found the Beatles unlistenable, but was fond of the music of the Osmonds even if Utah didn’t have good associations for her.
When Mr. Tamazaki finally managed to explain his situation and described the information he hoped that she would attempt to collect for him, she at once agreed. She was currently at the front desk of one of the dry-cleaning shops, but could get someone to cover for her within the hour.
54
After Miss Pearl left, I went inside to lie down on the sofa, and I fell asleep at once. For half an hour I remained oblivious, until the doorbell woke me, ringing incessantly. Of course the insistent visitor proved to be the twelve-year-old geek saxophonist.