The Last Year of the War, page 35
“Did you spend any time in here at all?” Ralph said, apparently as surprised as I was at how clean the place was.
Hugh grabbed his suits. “It’s been busy at the house with Irene and the children here. I’ve been needed inside.”
Ralph bent down, tossed the shoes atop the books, and picked up the box. “The problems inside that house aren’t your problems,” he said. He addressed his words to the box but clearly he wanted Hugh to hear them.
“I didn’t say they were,” Hugh replied, as he slung the suits on their hangers over his shoulder. “I said I was needed. You haven’t been here, Ralph, so you really wouldn’t know.” He turned to me. “Good night, Elise.”
“Good night,” I said.
They left. When Ralph came back a few minutes later, I hadn’t opened a suitcase or put one thing away. I had just been standing there, studying the little house that would be my home for a while, and wondering what it was going to be like to live with these people, what it was going to be like to discover who I was, here in this environment.
“Okay if we just take sides on the bed?” Ralph said easily, as though he and I were both fifth-grade boys and I’d come to his house for a sleepover. “I’ll sleep on top of the covers.”
He wasn’t really asking. The arrangement he was suggesting was the only one that made sense, since the little sofa in the living room certainly wouldn’t fit either of us if we stretched out.
But I nodded anyway.
An hour later, our suitcases were empty, our clothes had been put away, and Ralph lay atop the bedspread with a loose blanket across him, just inches from me.
I held Mariko’s notebook to my chest in the dark and counted sheep until sleep finally found me.
30
When I awoke the next morning, Ralph was still sleeping heavily. It was a few minutes after seven. I tiptoed out of the bedroom to see about making coffee in the little kitchen, but Hugh had apparently been taking his meals in the house. There was nothing in the refrigerator but an unopened bottle of white wine and a jar of pickles, and no food at all in the cupboards.
I waited for half an hour for Ralph to awaken, and when he didn’t I decided to dress and see if coffee had been made in the main house. I had grown accustomed to coffee after working at the café all those months, and I wanted something warm and familiar.
In the kitchen I met Martha, the housekeeper, who made all the meals at the Dove house. She’d also been tasked with taking care of the children in the early mornings, at least until Irene pulled herself out of bed. She was at least fifty and friendly enough, but she told me within seconds of meeting me that the added chore of minding Irene’s children had not been her idea. She handed me a cup of coffee and told me a light breakfast had been laid out in what she called the breakfast room, or I could wait and eat with Frances and Irene, whenever that would be.
I took the cup, thanked her, and made my way to the next room, which was alight with sunshine. The children were eating at the same table they had eaten at last night. Hugh was sitting with them, reading the newspaper. He was clearly dressed for work at the family company that Ralph had no interest in. I still wasn’t quite sure what the Dove family business was, other than that they found investors to put up the capital so that the studios could produce their films. I knew the investors stood to make a lot of money, and therefore so did the company, so naturally Ralph wanted nothing to do with it. I knew that much.
Pamela noticed when I came into the room. “It’s Elsie!” she said, grinning, and Teddy and Hugh both looked up from their plates of toast and eggs.
Teddy held up a jammy hand. “Hi,” he said, his mouth full of toast.
“Hello,” I replied.
“Good morning,” Hugh said, and then he looked past me, probably to see if Ralph had also come into the house.
“Ralph’s still asleep,” I offered. I sat down in a chair by Pamela.
“Will you and Ralph be needing a car today?” Hugh picked up the plate of buttered toast and extended it to me.
“Oh. Thank you. I guess we will. Probably.” I took a piece and set it on the plate in front of me.
Hugh blinked, as though waiting for me to continue.
“I mean, yes. Ralph said there were things he wanted to do today.”
“I’ll leave mine, then. I can have Higgins take me to the office in Mother’s car.”
He said it politely, as though it wasn’t a huge inconvenience, but it had to be. I felt as though all Ralph and I had done since we’d arrived the day before was inconvenience his brother. The way Hugh looked at us, at me, made me feel as though I was a massive disappointment. And I knew in that moment that I wanted Hugh to like me, accept me, welcome me into his life as his brother’s wife. His opinion of me mattered, I could see that, more than Frances’s or Irene’s. It would take me a few weeks to figure out why, but I would come to understand that Irene and Frances tended to see only their own needs and desires, whereas Hugh wasn’t constantly looking inward. He saw people. He cared about people. The welfare of others mattered more to him than his own. On that first morning, though, all I knew was that I didn’t want Hugh to despise me.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “Maybe Ralph was thinking we’d take a taxi or something.”
Hugh smiled weakly as he stood. “I doubt Ralph had thought ahead much about how he planned to get around today. I would offer you Irene’s car, but I’m sure she has plans today. And so does Mother.”
“But I don’t want to trouble you,” I said, and the earnestness in my voice seemed to surprise him.
Hugh regarded me for a moment, studied my face as though he was filing something away about me.
“It’s no trouble,” he replied, in what I can only describe as a more genuine voice. Before he’d been speaking cordially to me. Politely, but from an emotional distance. Now his tone was as sincere as my own. “Higgins can drop me off after he takes Pamela to school.”
“I don’t want to go to kindergarten today!” Pamela said. “I want to stay here with Uncle Ralph and Elsie. I want to show Elsie my dollhouse.”
“You can show her your dollhouse later,” Hugh said kindly. “Run upstairs now and brush your teeth. It’s almost time to leave.”
“I don’t want to go,” the child said defiantly.
“Upstairs now,” Hugh replied, firmly.
“No.”
“Look. You are going to school today.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Pamela—,” Hugh began, but I cut him off.
“You know what, sweetheart?” I said to her. “Your uncle Ralph and I have things to do today so I won’t be home until later to see your dollhouse. But I really do want to see it. Will you promise to show it to me when we both get home?”
She regarded me for a moment. “What things do you and Uncle Ralph have to do?”
“Boring adult things. Will you show me your dollhouse later today, when we’re both home again?”
“All right,” she said, and she got off her chair and headed out of the room, presumably to brush her teeth.
I glanced up at Hugh. I couldn’t tell if he was glad I’d intervened or put out. His face was expressionless. Maybe he was merely surprised I’d been able to change Pamela’s mind so quickly. I wanted to tell him I was four years older than my brother, so I’d had some practice with that age, but those words sounded boastful in my head.
“Well, I hope you and Ralph have a nice day today,” Hugh said as he took his suit coat off the chair back. He pulled a set of car keys out of his pants pocket and laid them on the table.
“Thank you. And thank you for letting us use your car.”
He nodded and started to walk away. Hugh had taken only a couple of steps when he turned back. “Thanks for that.” He tipped his head toward Pamela’s chair. “Walt’s leaving has been hard on them. He’s never been much of a parent to them, but they still miss him.”
Hugh left before I could summon a response.
A second later, Teddy climbed off his chair and onto my lap, christening my skirt with a strawberry jam handprint.
* * *
• • •
Ralph was up by ten, and then ate breakfast while I played with Teddy. Martha took the child so that I could change my stained skirt. I made our bed while I was in the casita, folding up Ralph’s blanket and draping it neatly across the end of the bed. When I came back inside the house, Frances had joined Ralph in the breakfast room. She wore a beautiful pale green dress with ivory trim and buttons. Her hair was neatly styled, and her makeup perfectly applied. Martha had been busy with the kitchen and the children that morning, so I knew Frances had seen to her appearance herself. She looked runway ready.
She said good morning to me as if nothing had happened the night before. I could see in her eyes that she remembered what she’d said to me when her many glasses of wine had loosened her tongue. And I could tell she wanted me to forget I’d seen her that way and that our relationship would get off to a much better start if I did. So I smiled and said good morning to her, too.
“And where are you two off to today?” she asked, picking up her coffee cup and drawing it near to her lips.
“Oh, here and there,” Ralph said, reaching for Hugh’s car keys. He’d been grateful, but not overly so, that his brother had left his car for us.
“You might want to see about getting your own vehicle, you know,” Frances said as she placed her cup on its saucer. “Hugh can’t be lending you his car every day.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Ralph said halfheartedly. I already knew we weren’t going to be looking at cars. Ralph was planning his photo trip, a long excursion to the far corners of the world, where he wouldn’t be needing a car. And I didn’t know how to drive.
Frances picked up on his noncommittal tone. “Please tell me you’re not planning to take the streetcar everywhere.”
“I don’t mind the streetcar,” he said, and then he turned to me. “Do you mind the streetcar, Elise?”
It wasn’t a question to answer. It was a comment, yet another veiled one, on how the upper class looks down its collective nose at the common man.
Frances sighed. “I realize you just got home, Ralph, but is there any point in my speaking to the board of directors about a position at the company for you?”
“I appreciate your wanting to. I do. But no. There would be no point.”
She sighed again. “And I take it that you’re not going back to college, either.”
“Not right now, no. There are some goals I have for myself, Mother. The army taught me a few things, believe it or not. And so did my one year at Stanford. First, there’s a lot that’s wrong with this world, and second, there’s a lot that can be done about it. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in the lap of luxury not giving a damn.”
“And you think that’s what I am doing? What Hugh is doing? Living in the lap of luxury, not giving a damn?” Frances said the words without anger or malice.
“No. But if I became what Hugh is, that’s what I would be doing. That’s not the life for me.”
Frances slowly turned her head in my direction. “And your lovely young wife? What kind of life does she want for the two of you?”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. She wasn’t really talking to me, even if her eyes were fixed on mine.
“Elise understands me completely,” Ralph said confidently. “She knows what I want for my life. She’s behind me one hundred percent. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to marry her.”
Frances held my gaze, willing me to look away and prove Ralph wrong. But I knew it was important that she realize what Ralph was saying was, for the most part, true. I knew what he wanted for his life. I had agreed to it. I didn’t understand him completely, but I had married him with the full knowledge that his future and mine were not bound together.
“I see,” Frances said. “Well. I don’t wish to discuss this anymore today. And I have mahjong in an hour. Dinner is at eight tonight if you care to join us.”
“Us?” Ralph said.
“Hugh and me and Irene, if she isn’t out painting the town red,” Frances said, setting her cup down too hard. It rattled on its saucer.
Ralph reached out to his mother, stopping her from turning away. “I really am grateful for a place for Elise and me to stay right now, and for offering to find me a position at the company. I am. But I would be miserable there, Mother. I would die a little every day. Father loved it, and maybe Hugh does, too. But it would kill me.”
Frances looked down at his hand on her arm, and then she raised her gaze to look into his eyes. She nodded once, her own eyes lined with threatening tears. It was the most tender moment I would ever see between them.
Ralph gently removed his hand, and his mother turned on her heel and left.
* * *
• • •
On my first afternoon in Los Angeles, Ralph and I strolled down Hollywood Boulevard, ate lunch at a diner that had been Ralph’s favorite when he was young, drove up to the planetarium at Griffith Park and admired the view, and then went to a camera store.
Ralph bought a Leica, German made, he told me, and paid for it with his army pay. He bought rolls of film, too, and lens paper and a shoulder strap and a bag to store everything in.
When we were walking back out to Hugh’s car, he asked me if I needed anything to start figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. He had his new camera; what did I need?
I had no idea.
And then a thought popped into my head, and suddenly I knew where I wanted to go—not to buy something, but rather to see something.
“Can you take me to Little Tokyo?” I asked.
He couldn’t have been more surprised. “You’re not serious, are you?” he said, half laughing the words.
My face grew warm. “Well, yes.”
He took in my embarrassment and nearly childlike bafflement, and his tone softened. “Because of her? Mariko? Is that why you want to see it?”
It didn’t seem that silly of an idea to me. I only wanted to see Little Tokyo, not move there. I wanted to see its streets and imagine Mariko walking them and to feel again the connection I had with her, and the way I looked at my future when she was my best friend and my single ray of hope in the last year of the war. She was gone to me, I knew that, but perhaps in Little Tokyo there would be echoes of our friendship that I could revisit from time to time.
“I just want to see it,” I said. We were almost at the car now.
“She’s not there, Elise,” Ralph said, almost affectionately.
“I know that.”
He stopped so that I had to look at him.
“It’s not the way it was when she lived there,” Ralph said. “I hear Negroes took over all the empty buildings and apartments after the Japanese were forced out. The Times calls it Bronzeville now. No one calls it Little Tokyo anymore. There are no Japanese living there, Elise. It’s not where you want to start, trust me.”
I turned from him to stare down Sunset Boulevard. The road stretched to the end of the horizon. I didn’t know if what had been Little Tokyo lay somewhere off to the left or right of the busy street, or if it lay behind me or in the direction of the sun, which was now starting to hang low in the sky. It seemed then that all I was to have of Mariko, for the rest of my life, was the story that she had begun and hadn’t finished. I had my memories, too, of course, but they were already starting to feel thin—so much had already changed.
“I think the best thing you can do is move on from the war,” Ralph said. “I think you’re meant to. That’s why I brought you here, remember? The whole world is open to you now. It’s okay to take it slow, if you want. You don’t have to rush. You will always have money. You will always have a place to live. There are a thousand things to do and see in LA. All kinds of schools and colleges and opportunities. You’ll find out what you want to do when you start opening your eyes to what your new life can offer you, instead of trying to hang on to what your old life took.”
He was right. He had to be. And yet I felt so alone.
“I wish you weren’t leaving so soon on that trip,” I said, flicking away tears that had crept into my eyes.
“Hey. You don’t need me to figure this out. I’m as much a part of your old life as your new one. Daily reminders of your past aren’t going to help you carve out your future.”
He opened the car door and I folded myself inside. We stopped at a grocery store on the way home and got food for the casita’s kitchen. Ralph kept asking me what I wanted to fill the pantry shelves with, as though he wouldn’t be eating much of it because he wouldn’t be there.
When we got back to the casita, and as we were putting the food away, I asked Ralph when he was leaving on his trip.
“In a week, I think. Maybe less.”
“And for how long?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought much about that. A month or two. Maybe longer.”
“You might miss my birthday?” We were having this discussion during the third week of February.
“It’s in April, right?”
“The sixteenth.”
“Hmm. Yeah, I could maybe be back by then. I don’t want to promise. I’ll write, though, so you’ll know where I am. And I’ll bring you back something nice if I miss it.”
“Right,” I said reflexively, but nothing seemed right. I kept telling myself as we put the groceries away that I had known Ralph was going to take this trip. I had known. I had known. I married him anyway.
When we were done, and while Ralph attached the lens to his new camera, I took Mariko’s book from my bedside table and held it for a moment. Ralph was right about what I had to let go of. If I didn’t, I would never learn to be truly happy again. Mariko’s memory was too precious to me to throw away, but I could put her book out of sight. I could hide it from view and maybe even forget for a while that I had it. I slipped the book inside my empty suitcase, replaced it in the hall closet, and closed the door.
