Can you believe that? Me, playing at the Black Elks ..."
"With Oscar Holden!" Henry finished. He'd never heard the man play, but he'd seen his posters all over town, and Sheldon always talked about him in tones normally reserved for heroes and legends.
"With Oscar Holden." Sheldon nodded, then belted out a few happy bars on his sax. "It's only for tonight, but hey, it's a good gig, with a good man."
"I'm so excited!" Henry grinned. "That's really big news."
"Speaking of big news, who's that little girl I've seen you walking home with, huh? Something I should know about?"
Henry felt blood flushing his cheeks. "She's ... just a friend from school."
"Uh-huh. Would that be a girl friend, perhaps?"
Henry quickly answered in defense. "No, she's a Japanese friend. My parents would kill me if they found out." He pointed to the button on his shirt, a new one his father had made him wear after the other one was ripped off by Chaz.
"I am Chinese. I am Lebanese. I am Pekinese. I am the ever-loving bees' knees."
Sheldon just shook his head. "Well, the next time you see your Japanese friend, you tell her oai deki te ureshii desu."
"Oh I decky tay ooh ree she day sue," Henry mimicked.
"Close enough--it's a compliment in Japanese, it means 'How are you today, beautiful--' "
"I can't say that," Henry interrupted.
"Go on, she'll like it. I use it on all the local geisha girls around here, they always take it the right way, plus she'll appreciate it being in her native tongue. Very sophisticated that way. Mysterious. "
Henry tried the phrase out loud a few more times. And a few more times quietly in his head. Oai deki te ureshii desu.
"Now why don't you head on over to Japantown and try it out--I'm closing up early today anyway" Sheldon said. "One more performance, then I'm saving my wind for my big spotlight gig with Oscar tonight."
Henry wished he could see and hear Sheldon play with the famed jazz pianist.
Wished he could see what the inside of a real jazz club looked like. Sheldon had told him that most of the clubs had dancing, but when Oscar played, people just sat back and listened. He was that good. Henry liked to imagine a dark room, everyone clad in their fine suits and dresses, holding long-stemmed glasses, listening to music drift out of the spotlight onstage, cool fog rolling in off a stretch of cold black water.
"I know you'll do great tonight," Henry said, turning to head south toward Japantown, instead of east toward his family's apartment.
Sheldon flashed him his gold-capped smile. "Thank you, sir, you have a fine day now," he said and went back to his next performance.
Henry practiced the Japanese words, saying them over and over as he kept walking--until the faces on the street turned from black to white to Japanese.
Japantown was bigger than Henry realized--at least four times the size of Chinatown, and the farther he walked through the crowded streets, the more he realized that finding Keiko might be impossible. Sure, he'd walked her partway home from school, but that was just to the fringes of the neighborhood. They'd walk as far as the Hatsunekai Dance School, then he'd say good-bye, watching her head in the direction of the Mount Fuji Hotel. From there he'd cut back over to Jackson and on to South King in the direction of home. Walking down Maynard Avenue was like being dropped into another world. There were Japanese banks, barbers, tailors, even dentists and newspaper publishers. The glowing neon signs still flashed by day, paper lanterns hung outside the stoop of each apartment dwelling, while small children pitched baseball cards of their favorite Japanese teams.
Henry found a seat on a bench and read through a day-old copy of the Japanese Daily News, much of which, surprisingly was printed in English. There was a going-out-of-business sale at the Taishodo Book Store, and a new owner had taken over Nakamura Jewelry. As Henry looked around, there seemed to be a lot of businesses for sale; others were closed in the middle of the day. All of which made sense, as many of the news articles had to do with hard times in Nihonmachi. Apparently business had been bad, even before Pearl Harbor--going all the way back to when the Japanese invaded Manchuria, in 1931. Henry remembered the year only because his father mentioned the war in China so often. According to the news article, the Chong Wa Benevolent Association had called for a boycott of the entire Japanese community. Henry didn't know what the Chong Wa was exactly, some sort of Chinatown committee like the Bing Kung Association, which his family belonged to--but larger and more political, encompassing not only his neighborhood but the entire region and all the tongs--social networks that sometimes resembled gangs. His father was a member.
As Henry looked at the scores of people milling about the streets, shopping and playing, their numbers belied the hard times, boycotts, and the boarded-up, flag-draped storefronts. Poking through the streets, most of the locals ignored him, though some Japanese children pointed and spoke as he walked by, only to be shushed by their parents.
There were more than a few black faces speckling the crowd, but no white faces to be seen.
Then Henry stopped in his tracks when he finally saw Keiko's face-- or a photo of it anyway--in the window display of the Ochi Photography Studio. There she was, in a dark sepia print of a little girl dressed in her Sunday best, sitting in an oversize leather chair, holding an ornate Japanese umbrella, a bamboo parasol with koi painted on it.
"Konichi-wa," a Japanese man, fairly young by the look of it, greeted him in the doorway. "Konichi-wa, Ototo-san?"
Confused by the Japanese greeting, Henry opened his coat and pointed to his button that read "I am Chinese."
The young photographer smiled. "Well, I don't speak Chinese, but how are you today--looking for a photograph? A sitting? Or are you just looking for someone?"
Now it was Henry's turn to be surprised. The young photographer's English seemed near perfect compared with Henry's own grasp of the language.
"This girl, I go to school with her."
"The Okabes? They send their daughter to the Chinese school?"
Henry shook his head, waving his hand. "Keiko Okabe, yes. We both go to Rainier Elementary--the white school across Yesler Way."
A moment of silence vanished in the car engines that roared by. Henry looked on as the photographer regarded the photo of Keiko.
"Then you both must be very special students."
Since when did special become such a burden? A curse even. There was nothing special about scholarshipping at Rainier. Nothing at all. Then again, he was here looking for someone. Maybe she was special.
"Do you know where she lives?"
"No. I'm sorry. But I see them a lot near the Nippon Kan Hall. There's a park, you might look for her there."