“Men are always late,” Mrs. M. said around the corner. It was her great pleasure to hang out with the girls and gossip. “Henry, where’s your friend Melissa?” she asked, hoping to embarrass me.
“Haven’t seen her since I got back,” I replied easily.
Rebel and Carmen were arguing. “I can’t believe Jo would be so stupid as to get pregnant again,” Carmen said. “It’s a shame.”
“Not if she has a good one,” said Rebel.
“She’s had four bad ones in a row. I think that’s a sign she should heed.”
Rebel said, “But it’s hard to be pregnant all that time and nothing to show for it.”
“They were bad ones,” Carmen said. “Real bad.”
“God made the bad ones too,” Rebel said, pursing her lips.
“He didn’t make them bad,” Carmen countered. “It was radiation that did that, and I’m sure God doesn’t approve. Those that are born bad, it’s a blessing to them to send them back to God and let Him try with them again. If we let them live they’d be a burden on themselves as much as on us. I can’t see how you don’t see that, Reb.”
Rebel shook her head stubbornly. “They’re all God’s children.”
“But they would be a burden,” Kathryn put in practically. “You have to figure you’re not about to have a kid until after its Name Day.”
“We don’t have the right,” Rebel said. “What if you had been born with only one arm, Kate? You’d still have had the brains and drive to bring bread back to this valley. Your gift isn’t in your body.”
“It was yeast brought bread back, not me,” Kathryn said, trying to lighten things.
“But if we let them live,” Carmen said, “half the valley would be crippled. And the generation after that might not survive.”
“I don’t believe that,” Rebel said. Her mom had had three bad ones after Del and her, and she was pretty touchy about it. I think she missed those little tykes. But Carmen was just as firm the other way. She and Doc made the decisions, and I don’t think she liked the matter discussed at all. Kathryn saw they were getting wrought up, and noticed my interest, and I don’t think she wanted it happening with me around. She said, “Maybe Jo didn’t plan to get pregnant.”
“I bet she didn’t,” Mrs. M. said with a smirk. “Marvin Hamish is not one to watch the moon too close.” They laughed, even Rebel and Carmen. Then Mando and Del arrived, and the conversation shifted to the quality of the grain this season. Kathryn was depressed about it; the storm that had almost killed me had succeeded with a good portion of her crop.
Then Steve arrived. He swung Kathryn off the ground with a hug, and dusted the flour off his hands.
“Katie, you’re a mess!” he cried.
“And you smell like fish!” she cried back.
“Do not. All right, it’s time for Chapter Two of this fine book.”
“Not until we get these trays into the ovens,” Kathryn said. “You can help.”
“Hey, I finished my day’s work.”
“Get over there and help,” Kathryn commanded. Steve shambled over, and we all got up to get the trays in.
“Pretty tough boss,” Steve scoffed.
“You shut up and watch what you’re doing,” Kathryn said.
When we got the trays in we all sat, and Steve pulled the book from his coat pocket, and started the story again.
Chapter II. The International Island.
Between two rosebushes thick with yellow blooms stood a tall white woman holding a pair of garden shears. Though they did not look much alike, she was Hadaka’s mother. When she saw me she snapped the shears angrily.
“Who is this?” she cried, and Hadaka hung her head. “Have you brought home another one, foolish girl?”
“So that’s how she gets her boyfriends,” Rebel interjected, to hoots from the girls. “Not a bad method!”
“That’s what you call fishing for men all right,” Carmen said.
“Quiet!” Steve ordered, and went on.
“I saw him sailing to the forbidden shore, mother, and I knew he came from the mainland—”
“Quiet! I’ve heard it all before.”
I put in, “I am deeply grateful to your daughter and yourself for saving my life.”
“This only encourages your father,” Hadaka’s mother fumed. Then to me: “They wouldn’t have killed you unless you tried to escape.”
“See,” Kathryn said to me, “they might have killed you when you jumped off their ship. You were in a more dangerous position than you’ve let on.”
I began “Umm, well—”
“Stow it,” said Steve. He was tired of hearing about my adventure, that was sure. Mando added, “Please.” Mando was desperate to hear the story; he really loved it. Steve nodded approvingly and started again.
Her shears snipped the air. “Come in and get yourself cleaned up.” She wrinkled her nose as I passed her, and beslimed and bewhiskered as I was I could hardly blame her; I felt like a barbarian. Inside their tile-walled bathing room I washed under a shower that provided water from freezing to boiling, depending on the bather’s desire. Mrs. Nisha (for such, I found, was their family name) brought me some clothes and showed me how to use a buzzing shaver. When all was done I stood before a perfect mirror in gray pants and a bright blue shirt, a cosmopolitan.
When he arrived home Hadaka’s father was less upset by my presence than his wife had been. Mr. Nisha looked me up and down and shook my hand, invited me in harsh English to sit with the family. He was Japanese, as I may not have said, and he looked much like Hadaka, although his skin was dark. He was a good deal shorter than Mrs. Nisha.
“Must procure you papers,” he said after Hadaka told him the story of my arrival. “I get you papers, you work for me a little while. Is it a deal?”
“It’s a deal.”
He asked a hundred questions, and after that a hundred more. I told him everything about me, including my plans. It seemed I had been even luckier than I yet knew, having Hadaka intercept me, for Mr. Nisha was a worker in the Japanese government of the Channel Islands, in the department supervising the Americans living there. In this work he had met Mrs. Nisha, who had crossed the channel as I had some twenty years before. Mr. Nisha also had a hand in a dozen other activities at least, and most of them were illegal, although it took me a week or two to realize this fully. But from that very night I saw that he was quite an entrepreneur, and I took pains to let him know I would serve him in any way I could. When he was done questioning me all three of them showed me to a cot in their garden shed, and I retired in good spirits.
Within the week I had papers proving I had been born on Catalina and had spent my life there, serving the Japanese. After that I could leave the Nishas’ house freely, and Mr. Nisha put me to work fishing with Hadaka and weeding their garden. Later, after this trial period was done, he had me exchange heavy brown packages with strangers on the streets of Avalon, or escort Japanese from the airport on the backside of the island into town, without of course subjecting them to the inconveniences of the various checkpoints.
It should not be imagined that these and the other clandestine activities Mr. Nisha assigned to me were at all unusual in Avalon. It was a town teeming with representatives of every race and creed and nation, and as the United Nations had declared that the island was to be used by the Japanese only, and only for the purpose of quarantining the American coast, it was obvious that many visitors were there illegally. But officials like Mr. Nisha existed in great numbers, at all levels, both on Catalina and in the Hawaiian Islands, which served as the entry point to western America. Almost everyone in town had papers authorizing their presence, and it was impossible to tell whose were forged or bought; but wandering the streets I saw people dressed in all manner of clothing, with features Oriental, or Mexican, or with skin as black as the night sky; and I knew something was amiss in the Japanese administration.