By midnight, they were turning up Sacramento Street and pulling to a stop in front of Rochelle’s house. Alan had held her hand for a while as they drove back up the coast, but gave that up and lit a cigarette instead. Goldie had stared out the window. Sometimes the moon lit up the hills, sometimes it seemed as though the entire world had vanished. She felt drained inside, as if she’d used up every emotion, but she sensed, too, the earliest stirrings of a deep and abiding revulsion for him.

  Alan didn’t get out of the car to open the door for her. He glanced at his watch. “Nobody’s turning into a pumpkin tonight!” he joked, as if he’d fulfilled his princely obligations.

  Goldie opened her purse and looked for her key. Was she supposed to thank him for a night like this one? “Rochelle will probably blast me about how late it is,” she said. She opened the door, but before getting out she stopped, leaving it wide open, and leaned back into her seat again. “I wonder,” she said, staring out the windshield in front of them. “Did I ever tell you about my sister Louise?”

  “Not that I recall,” he said.

  “She’s the oldest of the ten of us. I’d say she’s nearly forty. She used to be a pretty girl, and she went on an awful lot of dates. One fellow proposed, but Louise thought she’d find a better match, so she discouraged him. Another young man moved away. My mother was sick, and my father was no kind of provider for us. We needed money, so Louise found work cleaning houses and eventually moved in with a rich family downtown. It’s not easy finding a husband when you’ve got a job like that. Then she lost her looks. Domestic work will do that.” Goldie turned to Alan. “Have you ever seen the hands of a girl who does domestic work, Alan?”

  He had lit another cigarette. He didn’t want to seem callous, but he saw where this was going, and he didn’t want to get entangled, either. “Sure,” he told her. He let the smoke sift through his lips, focusing his attention on the dim glow of the embers. The fact was, he had no intention of marrying a Jew.

  “It is not a pretty sight,” Goldie continued. “Your fingers get blistered and cracked. Sometimes they bleed. You spend half your time with your hands in hot water and the other half burning yourself with an iron. Poor Louise. She would have made a perfect wife.” She looked at him. “You know, Alan, Louise’s situation scared me. I came to San Francisco, all by myself, because I thought I’d have a better chance here.”

  Alan tried to laugh. “You don’t have to worry about a thing like that, Goldie.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  He shifted in his seat. He’d enjoyed the evening, but he got no pleasure from her manipulation.

  Goldie touched the back of her head. Earlier, in the bathroom, she had straightened her clothes again, then stared at her face for a while in the mirror. Eventually she managed to reassemble her bun so that she could return to Rochelle’s looking as she had when she left. The events of the evening had caused her to lose some bobby pins, though, and now, sitting in the car, she discovered strands of hair falling out of place again. “What a mess,” she muttered. One by one, she pulled out the pins and, holding them between her lips, let her hair tumble down to her shoulders before securing it again with a few deft twists and an artful replacement of the pins. “That should work,” she said, before turning her attention back to Alan. “I just want you to know that this evening together meant a lot to me.”

  He squirmed. “Well, sure.”

  Goldie put her hand on his leg and leaned closer. To Alan’s surprise, the gesture affected him. Despite her obvious cunning, he had enjoyed himself with her, and she remained more intoxicating than he would have liked. Perhaps he could find a way to continue to see her after all. It might be complicated, but he was smart enough to manage. Wasn’t that part of the fun—the battle between the sexes? He started to pull her toward him, but Goldie moved away, preferring instead to whisper in his ear.

  “Oh, Alan,” she said. Her tone was deliciously soft and seductive. The sound alone excited him even more, which might explain why it took so long for him to absorb the meaning of her last few words. “I’d rather clean houses for the rest of my life,” she purred, “than marry a rat like you.” By the time Alan Stevenson did comprehend what Goldie had said, she was out of the car. He saw nothing but the side of her arm as she slammed the door behind her.

  Goldie ran across the sidewalk and up the stairs, gripping her pocketbook in one hand and holding her hair in place with the other. At the door to the apartment, she slid her key into the lock and quickly turned the knob. Rochelle’s accusations began before she’d even stepped into the hallway. For the first and last time in her entire life, the sound of her sister’s voice gave Goldie comfort, so much comfort, in fact, that it brought her to tears.

  16

  Appendicitis

  Goldie had left school after eighth grade, and though she witnessed the progress of her sister’s pregnancy, nothing in her education had taught her to read the signals her own body began to provide over the next few weeks. At first she took the exhaustion and nausea as signs of flu. She noticed the lateness of her period, but her knowledge of female fertility was vague and incomplete, and she made no connection between her current symptoms and the fact that she wasn’t bleeding anymore. Goldie’s mother had died before giving her any information about relations between women and men. Her sister Eleanor had at times offered advice like “Don’t be alone in a room with a man” and “Keep your panties on.” Once Goldie had moved from Memphis to California, Rochelle made a few distracted attempts to offer cryptic warnings—“Be careful!” and “Watch out!”—but Rochelle had been so focused on her own small children and her currently bulging belly that she didn’t notice the signs of change in her sister. By now, strong smells made Goldie feel sick. She couldn’t eat anything but fresh fruit and warm milk. And she felt monumentally tired. All she wanted to do was nap.

  Some nights, though, she couldn’t sleep. Late in the evening, she curled up on her bed, a narrow sofa in the children’s room, wedged between the toddler bed and the crib. While the children slept, she moved her hands uncertainly over her body, which seemed to be failing her. Was it some strange disease? Did she have cancer? Sleepless, she could watch the crisscross pattern the moonlight threw against the wall over the baby’s crib. Some nights she would lie for hours staring at it, and in the darkness, her sense of color became unsure. What color were those boxes of light on the wall? Were they yellow? Gray? Even in her worried state, she still had the presence of mind to imagine a dress in such a fabric—hazy and geometric, in night shades of black and yellowy gray—but she had come to feel so hopeless about her life that the possibility of ever having such a dress seemed no more realistic than the possibility that she would be crowned princess and get to wear a tiara.

  One morning in early February, the cramps began as she stepped from the bus on her way to work. She felt some discomfort, but nothing painful, and wondered if her “monthlies,” as she and Rochelle called them, had finally returned. If they had, she knew there was a box of pads and belts in a drawer in the ladies’ lounge, kept there for just such emergencies. Once she arrived at Feld’s, she ducked into the lounge and checked inside her underwear, but nothing had happened. It was nearly 9 A.M., so she hurried to her post at the circular tie counter, where, because she’d been feeling “under the weather,” she had been assigned for the past week. The tie department was a coveted position because employees could spend most of the day on a stool. Goldie felt grateful to Mr. Blankenship for assigning her there, though he may also have noticed the increase in tie sales. When Goldie was stationed there, it seemed that every college boy in San Francisco needed a tie.

  Not long after she’d stepped behind the counter, one of those very boys approached and lingered shyly near the cabinet, his gaze half on the selection inside and half, surreptitiously, on Goldie.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, standing up from the stool and moving over toward the side of the counter near where the boy hovered. Because she wanted Mr. Blankenship to always see her busy, she held a rag in her hand to wipe the counters.

  “I need a blue tie,” the boy said. Goldie glanced down through the glass. Blue ties in every imaginable pattern lay on a tray before them, and the young man was wearing one, too. He moved closer and peered down through the glass.

  Goldie might have been profoundly ignorant about the human body, but she had an intuitive understanding of her influence on men. Gently, she lifted her hand and took the edge of the boy’s own tie between her fingers. “Are you looking for something like this one?” she asked him, bending closer. She knew that doing so enhanced his view of her breasts, but she didn’t mind. She liked to display her body in a way that seemed thoughtless and unintentional. It made men feel that they were getting a glimpse of something private.

  That was Goldie’s normal approach, at least. Today, she was leaning forward in order to take the pressure off her feet. The cramping had started again, mild waves that moved up from her lower groin, then expanded out in every direction. She had to conserve her energy for the eight hours of work ahead of her. She shifted onto a different leg, but that changed nothing.

  The sight of her fingers on his tie clearly distracted the young customer, and she let go because she didn’t want to scare him off. He looked well dressed, and she thought perhaps that, with the right technique, she could sell him two ties, maybe three. “Um, yes, something blue,” he said.

  “Let me show you.” She unlatched the cabinet and began to pull out a tray. Just then she felt a stabbing pain, like something suddenly slicing through her gut. “Uh!” she gasped, gripping the edge of the display. She looked around, feeling as if the earth had moved, but no one had noticed. The boy kept his eyes on the ties. He might not have even heard her.

  Goldie looked down. Turning her foot, she saw a thin stream of blood moving down her lower leg and along her ankle, then disappearing into her shoe. The pain did not stop. Somehow she managed to set the tie tray on the counter. “Just a moment,” she managed to say. “Let me see if I can get someone to help you.”

  Just then, Marvin Feld was walking by. Since the day on the boat the previous summer, Goldie’s relationship with Marvin had settled into a warm and respectful acquaintance. More recent events had caused her to forget her plan to marry him, and she certainly didn’t think of him as a friend. If someone had told Goldie in advance that she would face a choice at this moment, to call to Marvin Feld or die, she would have said that she would die.

  Goldie’s instinct for self-preservation was stronger than she knew, however. The potential for embarrassment didn’t even cross her mind. “Mr. Feld,” she called. “Could you help me?”

  Goldie’s face was white and full of strain. Marvin, seeing it, hurried over. “Miss Rubin,” he said. “What is it?”

  Goldie felt another stab of pain. Now she doubled over, blinded, but still aware of the customer on the other side of the counter. “I’ve dropped something,” she groaned quietly. “Could you help me, please?” she clutched the side of the cabinet to keep herself from falling.

  Swiftly, Marvin raised the hinged counter and stepped inside the display case. He saw the blood running down Goldie’s leg and beginning to pool on the floor. “Oh, my,” he said. Then he turned toward the young man, who seemed frozen over the selection of ties. “I’m so sorry, sir,” he said. “You’ll have to excuse us. Could you come back tomorrow?” Then he yelled toward French Agnes in scarves, “Call an ambulance!”

  For the next several minutes, Marvin crouched in that tiny space beside Goldie, holding her hand, wiping the sweat off her forehead, whispering soothing words. The staff of Feld’s had always seen Marvin as friendly enough, but disinterested and lazy. He seemed like a good-natured rich boy to them. But Marvin had spent a year on a Liberty ship in the Atlantic. He had seen his share of injury and battle. Among the dozens of staff and customers in the store at that moment, no one was better fit to sit with Goldie than Marvin Feld, who could look at the blood pooling on the floor without feeling even slightly squeamish. Marvin moved in closer, gripping Goldie’s hand, and when she couldn’t sit up any longer, he held her. “What’s happening to me?” Goldie asked. “Am I dying?”

  “Of course not,” Marvin said, his voice so full of resolve that he managed to convince her, if not himself. “You’ll live,” he whispered again and again, until the ambulance finally arrived and took her away.

  Later, Goldie would not remember the ride to the hospital. She would not remember the doctors’ brief examination, the diagnosis of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and massive internal bleeding, anything about the surgery itself, or even much about the days she spent in the hospital while she recovered from the miscarriage. She remembered the lovely vase of flowers that Marvin sent, and Rochelle’s furious, repeated demand: “Who was it?” By this time, though, Goldie had figured out the details of the birds and the bees, and she refused to answer. Rochelle, as bloated and whiny as she may have been, knew enough to stop asking. Two weeks later, informing everyone within earshot that she had almost died of appendicitis, Goldie returned to work as if nothing really terrible had happened.

  17

  Empty Shelves

  By February 1942, President Roosevelt had ordered all Japanese Americans out of the regions along the Pacific Coast. People of Japanese descent, most of whom were U.S. citizens, were told to pack up their things and report to receiving centers, from which they would later be relocated to more permanent quarters in internment camps. The Nakamura family congregated on the morning of February twenty-fourth on Post Street between Buchanan and Sutter. Henry and his new wife arrived by taxi with his mother and Mayumi. They had three trunks between them, plus a couple of duffels full of sheets, towels, and other dull but necessary household items, which took up an infuriating amount of space. Henry’s father had remained at the house in Golden Gate Park for another hour or so. He had been wandering through the gardens all night. “I see no need to rush,” he said. By that evening, they would be living in temporary housing at the Tanforan Racetrack, just outside the city. “We will have nothing to do when we get there, in any case.”

  Henry didn’t argue with his father. He merely instructed him to meet the rest of the family at Uncle Aki’s store, extracting a promise that the old man would show up. Henry could imagine his father now, moving slowly through the garden, taking time at each bed to offer a silent good-bye.

  The rest of the family dragged their things inside the store and piled them against the wall. The shop, once so full of goods, was now nearly empty. It represented a bitter success for Uncle Aki, who had managed to winnow down his inventory so completely that he could leave behind only bare shelves instead of the vast array of items on which he had invested his entire fortune. “I’ve got money in my pocket,” he said grimly, “but it doesn’t come close to covering what I spent to buy the goods.” The price slashing in Japantown had been so drastic over the past few weeks that even non-Japanese had begun to shop in their stores, attracted, finally, by the bargains.

  “I had one lady in here looking at the kimonos,” said Uncle Aki. “Why would she even want a kimono? But she looked so happy. ‘These prices are indecent!’ she exclaimed. She would never have shopped in a Japanese store if it had actually cost her money.”

  Henry ran his fingers across the top of an empty shelf. As always, it was free of dust and grime. Even when Uncle Aki was leaving the place, closing his shop perhaps forever, he had spent the last evening cleaning. Henry understood. He had left his office on Market Street in pristine condition, too.

  “This is ridiculous,” Henry muttered, but no one wanted to talk about what was happening, including him. They simply moved through the tasks of packing up and leaving.

  The women went back into the storeroom with Uncle Aki to make some food. How long would they have to wait before they could again cook their own rice in their own kitchens? According to the government announcements, they would be piled into buses and taken to the racetrack on the outskirts of San Francisco, where they would live for the months it took for their “permanent” quarters to be completed in the desert. Henry walked out onto the sidewalk and sat down on the bench near his uncle’s storefront. All up and down the street now, people were getting out of cabs and filing out of trucks and cars, parcels and bags in their arms. Henry had heard that the old horse stalls at Tanforan had been converted to barracks. Would he and his fellow Japanese be expected to drink out of pails and eat dried corn and the occasional apple?

  About that time, Henry saw Goldie coming toward him up the street. She was wearing red heels and a slim fitted skirt with a matching jacket and white blouse. She looked so pretty and fresh that it seemed completely obvious that he could never have married her. How long would a woman like that survive in some barracks in the desert? How could she have sacrificed that much for him? As she approached, he realized that she didn’t see him on the bench. He slumped deeper into his seat, hoping to let her pass. She had come to see Mayumi anyway. It would be better if she and Henry didn’t talk.

  But Goldie spotted him. There had been a time when she found Japanese faces indistinguishable, but that time had long since passed. Even with his unbrushed hair and wrinkled clothes, he stood out for her amid the jumble of other harried, disheveled-looking people on that sidewalk, just as he would stand out for her amid all the thousands of Japanese who were now congregating up and down the coast, preparing to be sent away. “Well, hello there!” she called, giving her voice the same easy enthusiasm it would carry if she had run into a friend shopping in Union Square. “I almost didn’t see you.”