A Girl Like You: A Novel Part 32

Everything is upside down since the war. People don't trust that they have time anymore. And Satomi must have been lonely in New York, straight out of her years of confinement in the camp. Were there really those places in America? It doesn't bear thinking about.

Abe, usually so considerate of her feelings, doesn't want to hear about Joseph. No matter what Satomi wants, he can't imagine ever having the man as a friend. Joseph's kind unsettles him, he doesn't understand such desires, doesn't want to know about them. If there's anything that disturbs him about Satomi, it's that bit of sophistication that Joseph has exposed her to, the experiences he wishes she'd never had.

And if he's honest, the Cora thing bothers him too. He feels bad about it, but it's hard to understand the connection Satomi feels with the child. He's doing his best, though, fighting off the thought that there's nothing like your own flesh and blood. If Satomi wants Cora, then he can live with it. Whatever happens, whatever compromises they have to make, they're strong enough to weather them.

"We'll want to start a family of our own one day," he says.

"I want that too, Abe. It would be wonderful if Cora is with a family, and happy. That would be fine with me. I just need to see her, to know that she's okay."

But what, he thinks, if she never finds her? Will it come between them, that bit of her that will always be longing, the bit he can do nothing to make better?

New York drips in a heat wave that reminds her of the one in Angelina.

Fresh out of the shower, Abe leaves for work in the mornings, his s.h.i.+rt sticking to his back before he is out the door.

"I've never known it quite this bad," he says. "What I'd give to be on the water."

The temperature is. .h.i.tting triple digits, blistering the paint on their windowsills, creating asphalt heat islands that bubble up between the trees on the sidewalk. The apartment sweats its way through August with them, no air-conditioning, but the fan going furiously.

"It seems to affect me more than you," Abe says. "How do you manage to look so cool?"

"Years of mountain weather," she says.

The electric feeder cables fail intermittently, so that more often than not their evenings are spent in the dark. In the blackouts they eat dinner by candlelight and read in the greenish glow of a shared flashlight, balanced precariously above their heads in the iron-work of the bedstead. The cold water runs warm, so to save money they switch the water heater off.

"With that and the cuts, we'll halve the energy cost," Abe says.

On investigation Abe discovers the puzzling hum in the bathroom to be a wasp's nest inside the extractor fan. He pours a poisonous powder down through the blades and the wasps go mad, darkening the room as they emerge heading for the light, covering the windowpanes in a thick humming curtain. For days after Satomi comes across dead ones on the floor and the window ledges, two floating in the milk jug.

On his day off, when the sweet cooing of their neighbors' pigeons stops, Abe goes to the roof to investigate and comes back with the news that their drinking water has evaporated in the heat.

"Dead," he says. "Never seen the like. I know for a fact they top that water up every morning before they leave for work."

When they can't sleep, they sit outside on the fire escape and Abe reads the night sky to her, pointing out the stars and the constellations. He loves naming them, as though the words conjure up something magical for him, Ursa Major, and Minor too, Lupus the wolf, and Orion the hunter.

"You get to know the stars at sea," he tells her. "Nothing like a clear night at sea."

It doesn't matter that the b.u.t.ter melts in their ailing icebox, that the milk goes sour in a day-nothing outside of the two of them matters. So what if they can't sleep in the heat? The hot nights are made for love anyway, for talking, for planning their future.

There is nothing like making love with Abe, nothing like the scent of him, fresh and green like ferns. And no feeling compares to the exquisite sense she has that they belong to each other, that they are complete. If the world went away and they were alone, it would be enough.

When Abe covers her, something in her breaks, a break he fills so completely that she forgets the camp, forgets Cora, forgets everything. And after, returned to herself in those quiet moments meant for expressing truths, there is only a small sense of remorse that she hasn't yet told him of Haru. He is hardly resigned to the idea of Joseph in her life, without testing him with a past lover. And he would mind, she believes. He is a predictable man, true to the morals of his time. Abe knowing about Haru wouldn't break them, but she can't bear the thought of hurting him.

While Abe works, she plays housewife, cleaning the apartment, was.h.i.+ng and ironing, shopping for their food. The ch.o.r.es are not enough to fill the day, and time stalls in the waiting-for-Abe hours. Long before she needs to, she takes the streetcar across the Queensboro Bridge to meet him from work. She sits on their special bench reading the same page of her book over and over, not able to concentrate on anything but the idea that he is somewhere close, that she will see him soon. Sometimes she changes benches so that he will have to look for her, so that she can watch him looking for her.

They talk of getting a bigger apartment, of how it will be when they have children. "Not yet, but soon," Abe says. They have the names all ready, Aaron for the boy, Iris, after Abe's beloved long-dead grandmother, for the girl. She considers bringing Cora into the conversation but can't seem to get the words out.

"It must be Aaron for the boy," Abe says generously. "He must know he was named for a hero."

Of course they will have a boy and a girl, and in that order. They have found each other and will have everything they want. They are blessed, aren't they?

On Abe's summer break, they go to Freeport. The heat is not so bad on the coast, there is always a breeze and the nights are cooler than in the city. Abe is happy there. So she is happy there.

They sail every day. He's surprised how good she is at it.

"Captain and mate," he says. "Not sure which of us is captain, though."

She watches him raise the sail, admires the muscles in his tanned arms, the creases around his eyes as he squints in the sunlight. Love and l.u.s.t collide and meld softly in her.

Anch.o.r.ed in port, he takes her on the cabin's impossibly small bunk, still surprised that she is as eager for it as he is for her. They always end up in a heap on the floor, tangled in the cover.

"We'll be black and blue all over if we don't stop this." She laughs. "Then what will Frances think?"

"Let's never stop this, Sati, never, never."

And after, beer straight from the bottle, hauled up from its net in the sea where Abe keeps it cooling. They play cards on deck with Wilson bunched up at their feet, snoring in his doggy sleep. They stay till dark, not wanting to share their time with anyone, not even Frances.

Abe introduces her to his Freeport, to the shopkeepers and the people who hunker down in the place after the tourists have gone. They are overly polite with her, cautious.

"Don't let it worry you," Abe says. "They don't matter."

Satomi is reminded of how hard it is to break into the circle. There have been so many circles in her life that she has skimmed around the edge of, never quite making it to the inside. Abe is the only one who sees her for who she is, who loves her because she is Satomi. Artie saw too much j.a.panese in her, Haru not enough. With Abe, though, she's just right. Even if she never quite fits in with those others he loves, she's inside the circle with him.

"It's a different world in winter," he tells her. "The sailing's not so easy, but I like it better. You'll see, you'll love it in winter."

They walk the ca.n.a.ls and on through the fields of pure white salt marshes that open out to the clean Atlantic Ocean.

"It's beautiful, isn't it? Have you ever seen anywhere so beautiful?"

She thinks of Fishers Island, of Joseph's sleek yacht Windward cutting through the gray-green ocean. Her first sight of it had taken her breath away.

"No, never, it's just perfect," she says.

He takes her to the Kissing Bridge over the Millburn but refuses to kiss her.

"I've kissed too many girls here," he says seriously. "You're not a bridge-kissing sort of girl, you're for keeps."

"Did you kiss Corrine here?"

"Oh, sure I did, her and a few others besides."

They stroll along the Nautical Mile, where in the Crab Shack Abe's friends, home for the summer, join them. Abe's order is always the same, steamed clams and his favorite light beer, brought to the table in gla.s.s pitchers, the liquid trembling gold in the sunlight.

"Nothing like Freeport steamers," he says.

It's a pleasure he savors, dipping each one first into the clam broth, then into the little tin pot of melted b.u.t.ter that comes on the side.

Sitting next to him, with the sound of the gulls bullying, the warmth of his thigh against hers as he helps himself to her fries, Manzanar it seems to her was a time in the life of a different girl. Finding Cora is not so much forgotten as put on hold. It's a honeymoon period for her and Abe. She is slipping into place, no longer defined by her experiences in the camp.

"I can't believe that I have found you," she says. "Just when I wasn't looking."

"It was meant," he says simply.

Back in New York, the heat in mid-July is still fierce. Abe, after having her to himself in Freeport, is reluctant for her to contact Joseph.

"We have our life, honey. It just doesn't fit with his."

"I have to keep in touch with him, Abe. Asking me not to see Joseph is like me asking you not to see your mother. It's cruel."

Their first real argument, though, comes not over Joseph but about Satomi wanting to work.

"You didn't mind living off Joseph's money." He would take the words back if he could. They are unfair and he knows the truth of it.

"I worked for most of the time I was with him," she defends herself, hurt by Abe's tone. "In any case, Abe, it's not the same thing at all. I'm lonely here with you gone all day."

"I don't want you working, Sati," he says flatly. "I can support my wife, I should think."

When she greets him with the news that she's taken a job, as a receptionist at the Bridge Hotel, near his hospital, a frown flits briefly across his brow before he raises his hands to heaven and gives in. She won't be ordered, and he loves that about her. She can't be anyone other than who she is.

"I don't like you working, honey, but if it's what you want ..."

"You'll hardly notice it, Abe. And it's not forever. Just until we settle, start a family."

The words "settle," "start a family" wrap themselves around her. They're imbued with warmth, with normality. She likes that the language of her world has changed to that of the all-American girl.

Joseph comes to the hotel, winces at the sight of her behind the desk, at the cheap plastic name badge on her dress. His face is a little drawn. He is a few pounds lighter than when she last saw him. He has had trouble finding the hotel, since the cab dropped him on the wrong street. He walked three blocks out of his way before discovering the mistake.

She has no name for the sweet feeling that floods her at the sight of him. Perhaps it's what a sister would feel after not seeing a loved brother for a while.

"G.o.d, you look healthy," he says. "But I can't say those clothes do much for you. You look like a schoolteacher."

"I like this dress, its Abe's favorite."

"Now, why doesn't that surprise me?"

Out of the Manhattan village, he's a tree unearthed, too elegant for the sullied midtown territory that she now inhabits. His imported Savile Row suit is fine worsted wool, his soft brogues of obvious quality. He's tanned from his European tour and it gives him a slightly racy look. She remembers the first time that she saw him and had thought him vain. She knows better now: his extreme neatness is his s.h.i.+eld, the meniscus he puts between himself and the world.

"I'm getting used to life without you, I suppose." He sighs. "But New York is not the same. I need pastures new, feel the urge to be off again."

Since her wedding he has been working on the Cora thing. No news yet, but he gives her his latest report, all neatly typed up. Families who have adopted j.a.panese children have been contacted, there are letters from the governor's office with a.s.surances that they will search records but can promise nothing. It's suggested that they should look farther afield, out of the state if need be.

"Anything from Dr. Harper?" he asks.

"Nothing, only that he thinks her name might have been changed, as he can't find a record anywhere of any Cora. It's as though she has disappeared from the world."

"She'll turn up, dear girl." He touches her cheek lightly. "Oh, and believe it or not, Hunter is getting married. A Connecticut family, one of the Harrison girls, Laura. You met her on Fishers Island, remember? She's been sweet on him since they were kids. His family is pleased."

"I'm pleased too. Lucky girl, to have Hunter."

"You'll come to the wedding, of course?"

"Well, it's not Abe's sort of thing, and he doesn't like me going places without him." She can feel herself blus.h.i.+ng.

"And what Abe says, goes?"

"Do you really think I've changed that much?"

"Well, I live in hope that you haven't. You look the same, although rather like a rare orchid in a tin can behind that desk. It's quite upsetting. Let me take you to lunch."

"Okay, I'd like that, but nowhere too smart. One of us has to look out of place, so it might as well be you. Somewhere that would suit a schoolteacher would be best, don't you think?"

The offer of a job with the Long Island hospital group comes out of the blue and Abe jumps at the chance.

"We can live in Freeport, buy a house, have our babies. What do you say?"

He hadn't needed to ask, they both knew the answer to that.

He would take up the position in December-time enough to pack up and give notice at the apartment, to honor his contract at the hospital, and for them to find a home of their own in Freeport.

"You can start looking for a house right away," he says. "Give up your job and stay with Frances. She'll love helping us find the right thing. I'll come every spare moment I get." He will miss her, but he will be sending her home, putting her somewhere safe, somewhere away from Joseph. The light of their future is beckoning, and he can't wait to be done with the city.

"It's a wonderful piece of luck, Sati."

"So wonderful," she agrees, even though she doesn't want to leave. Joseph is hardly a threat, and she would rather stay with Abe in Queens until they are ready to move.

There is something confirming, though, in the idea of being in Abe's childhood home, of finding a house of their own, waiting with his mother for him to return to them. Tamura had told her once that women must get used to waiting.

"Work and wars, Satomi," she had said. "It's the women who wait."

In Abe's childhood bed she wakes periodically through the night, gauging the time by the depth of darkness, the quality of the light seeping through the curtains from the sea. Will she ever be able to sleep comfortably on her own again?

In his boyhood room, full of boyish things that Frances can't bear to get rid of, her clothes are squashed up tight against Abe's outgrown ones in the small wardrobe. There are pictures of sailboats on the walls, balsa-wood planes hanging on strings from the ceiling, a baseball nestled in its glove on a shelf, as though waiting for Abe to pick up the game where he left it off.

Among the debris of his childhood there hardly seems room for her. A photograph of Wilson as a puppy, jumping for a ball, ears flying, jostles for s.p.a.ce on the small bedside table alongside a picture book on sailing, and two huge pebbles with the faint tracery of fossils inking their surface. She puts the book and the stones in a box under his bed, and the well of her memory is taken to that other bed she put a box under all those years ago. Shoving aside his puzzles, the miniature tool set, and a browning pile of comics, she swallows hard and attempts to banish the memory of that day, of that Angelina girl.

"Move anything you like," Frances had said lightly, but didn't tell her where she might move it to.

When Abe comes on his precious time off, the bed is too narrow for the both of them. They lie knotted together, close and uncomfortable. He pretends not to mind, she does too.

"It's cozy," he says.

"Mmm."

It's nothing against Frances, but she feels stifled being in such close quarters with someone she hardly knows. There is something of camp living in it that unsettles her. And she has noticed how Abe becomes more of a son than a husband in his mother's house. She misses having him to herself, misses the apartment. The need to find a place of their own is urgent in her.

"I'll go with whatever you choose," Abe says. "Long as it doesn't break the bank."

When she finds it on the fifth house viewed, it's obvious to her that it's the one. The day is dazzlingly bright, the noon sun high, the late summer day hot, yet the salt marshes on which the house sits appear to her like fields of pure untrodden snow.