Gift of the Golden Mountain

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ONE

August 1965

IT DOESN'T MATTER, I don't care. She rested her head on the back of the chair, turning her face so that she was looking out of the window and over the wing to the wisps of clouds flashing by, and repeated the words to herself, over and over again as a distraction, a litany to occupy her mind, to keep from thinking. It doesn't matter, I don't care. She could not have said what it was that didn't matter, or why she didn't care, and at that moment in the sky over Chicago, she would not have recognized those words as residuum of her childhood, would not have remembered the nights when she would bury her face in her pillow and tell herself that it didn't matter and that she didn't care.

     The big plane banked and turned, lurching as it lowered itself clumsily through the layers of summer storm clouds that billowed over Lake Michigan. She looked out the window and caught glimpses of the city sprawling below through breaks in the clouds.

     A steward intoned: For those of you who are continuing with us to San Francisco today, we will be on the ground at O'Hare for fifty minutes.

     She rummaged through the pocket of the chair in front of her, found an OCCUPIED sign and put it on her seat, then she made her way to the end of the line. She would go into the terminal, buy a newspaper, a magazine. A young woman pushed in line behind her. Looks like rain, she offered in a twanging, mid-western accent.

     Suddenly, the plane seemed close, the air hot and thin. The girl behind her in line chattered on. These can be something, these August storms. Real honest-to-God cloudbursts where it rains little frogs. The girl laughed and asked if she was from around here.

     No, she answered, attempting a smile, and then she excused herself and pushed her way back to her seat.

     The door was open now and the line began to move out of the plane. She had to tug to get her carry-on bag from under the chair; it came free and she made her way out to the boarding lounge. Then she was walking, walking fast and in long strides, though impeded somewhat by the straight cut of her linen dress, her shoulder bag bumping against her hip in the hurry. She made her way around clusters of travelers, who turned sideways to let her push by. Their eyes followed her. She was someone to watch in an airport—elegant in an unstudied way, the thrust of her body, the straightness of her spine, the mix of grace and determination. Her hair, long and dark and perfectly straight, rested precisely on the shoulders of the yellow dress, and stirred slightly in the breeze she made. Those who make a habit of watching people in airports might have concluded that she was late, that there was some kind of emergency. They might have thought she was meeting a man, or that she had decided not to, or that she was trying desperately to extricate herself from some romantic entanglement. She had a look about her that was almost mysterious, exotic yet efficient, too. Softly shaped eyes lined in kohl, the only makeup she used, prominent cheekbones, skin clear and smooth. A face that was hard to figure, a face that required study.

     She stopped at a bank of telephones, dropped the bag to the floor, and began rummaging in her purse.

     The phone rang five times, six. She closed her eyes and tried not to think.

     Yes? a man's voice answered.

     Karin, she said tentatively, then, Is Karin Rolofsen there?

     Karin came on the line before he could answer, her voice filled with alarm. May? Where are you? What's happened?

     She exhaled, steadied by Karin's voice. Nothing has happened. I'm in Chicago, I just got in. Listen, I'm going to stop over . . .

     No, Karin interrupted, No you aren't, May. Don't do this, not now. You were supposed to be here last week, now finally you're on your way and you tell me you are stopping in Chicago. May—this is insane . . . Why didn't you get a nonstop? Why . . .

     Calm down, Karin, she said, trying to sound in control. Listen to me. I promised a man I met in Paris—a physicist—that I would stop over and see him on my way to San Francisco. He's in a place called Batavia, a little town just west of Chicago, on a project of some kind and . . .

     Karin cut in, Don't tell me stories. There's no French physicist or you would have told me about him. You're making it up, it's just another excuse. God.

     I'm not making it up. I didn't say he was French, I said he was a physicist I met in Paris. He's American, and I don't tell you everything. Which reminds me, who answered the phone?

     Karin was not going to change the subject. Listen, May, you've got to come on tonight. Everything's planned. Oh God, I should never have let you talk me into coming on ahead.

     Have you found an apartment yet? May cut in.

     Yes! Karin said, suddenly willing to shift subjects, That's another reason you have to come now. It's not an apartment, it's a house. The couple who owns it are being transferred to Cleveland, and they've decided to rent it out. It's more than I budgeted, but there is something they call a mother-in-law cottage in the back that we can rent out, and that makes it just about the same as an apartment would be. You have to see it, May. It's beautiful—all wood inside, and beamed ceilings, a fireplace and window seats and a view of the Bay and within walking distance of the campus. But they won't hold it, they have to know and I said we would tell them for sure tomorrow.

     Take it. If you like it, I will. You know that.

     But I don't want to do it that way. I want you to come and look at it with me and decide together, if we're going to live here together. That was the deal.

     Karin, take it. Call the people now and tell them. It sounds wonderful, it sounds perfect.

     Karin allowed a silence to grow. May waited; she knew Karin would break it.

     You know what you're doing, don't you? Karin finally said.

     What is she doing? the male voice called out from the background.

     Who is that? May asked again, insinuating a sternness she did not feel.

     You're delaying, May, and you can't. Not any longer. It's time now, time for you to come home. I'm here. I promise, I'll be at the airport to meet you.

     May closed her eyes and tried for the right tone. I suppose that person who keeps yelling in the phone will be with you? But it was too arch, too obviously provoking.

     Karin's voice was gentle. Don't do that, don't try to pick a fight with me. He's a guy who offered to drive me out to the airport to get you, that's all.

     Does he have a name?

     Karin was speaking carefully now, holding in, trying hard. May knew she would be twisting the small gold heart on the chain around her neck. She could see her hands, small and plump, fingernails bitten to the quick. (Bitten in her sleep, May knew that too. In school they had put Band-Aids on Karin's fingers at night, to keep her from biting them, and she had bitten through the Band-Aids.)

     His name is Sam Nakamura, Karin said. He's a graduate student in chemistry. He's been very helpful.

     I'll just bet, May said.

     Karin sighed.

     I'm sorry, May answered, and she was, but she couldn't get back on the plane. Look, K, I'll call you tomorrow. I promise. I won't stay more than a day, two at the most . . .

     There's a big welcome home party for you tonight, Karin put in, her voice pleading now, at Kit's.

     Poor Kit, she answered, maybe she should have informed the guest of honor.

     Karin's voice was full of reproach. It was supposed to be a surprise party, May. The twins are here visiting Faith, and it was their idea. They've been decorating all day, and it's going to be an awful disappointment. . . .

     Faith and Annie and Amos and Karin—all of them waiting for her. She bit her lip. Listen, K—I can't talk anymore, there's a line of people waiting for this phone. I'll call you tomorrow, I promise. And she hung up.

     No one was waiting in line, she was all alone in the glaring white corridor, her stomach churning and her eyes blurred with tears, feeling sick as the clouds gathered outside the big plate-glass corridor. She was, she thought, being suffocated: the plane, the air-conditioned airport lounge, the corridor. She stood for a minute, looking at the dark clouds closing in, and she knew she had to get out and into the open.

     She made her way to the airline counter to ask that her luggage be held in San Francisco, then she found the car rental desk and calmed herself with the ritual filling out of forms.

     The girl at the counter had brightly lacquered fingernails which she flashed ostentatiously, lingering over the small x's where you signed on the line.

     Destination? she asked.

     May had to think a minute. Batavia, she finally told her, I think that's west of Chicago.

     Here, the girl said, stabbing the map with a red forefinger, then drawing a few quick, deft lines with a green marking pen.

     We have a brand-new Mustang for you today, Mr. Ford just sent it over, a bright shiny new red Mustang. Here, she went on, fingernails flashing over the map, you are here, your car is here, make a left and a left and a right, keeping to the right, and that will take you onto 294 south. Here. She made a mark on the map. Then you want to watch out for Highway 38, Roosevelt Road, west.

     May pushed hard on the doors and a tidal wave of heat washed over her, thick and choking and heavy, filling her lungs. A hot wind caressed her, moving up her skirt. She opened the car door and rolled down the window and waited for the heat to escape. Settling herself in the driver's seat, she pulled up her skirt, exposing long, slender brown legs. She rummaged in her purse until she found an elastic and caught up the mass of her hair, thick and jet black in the pale light. For an instant she smoothed her hands over her stomach, as if to allay the churning inside her.

     The slow throb of the motor steadied her. She needed to be behind the wheel, moving, traveling, in control. She could not sit, not wait in the heat. She swung around the turn, left and left again? She didn't remember but it didn't matter, she could see the highway, she could follow her instinct, feel her way.

     Driving helped, feeling the slow power of the engine beneath her helped, moving along a strange highway in an alien city helped; the windows were down and the wind was blowing, the clouds moved dark and ominous above and all of it helped.

     She turned on the radio but all she could get was static, so she turned it off again. She didn't need that sound, the wind blowing warm against her face was enough.

     The sign said Highway 38 and she turned, hoping she was turning west. She was moving now through small towns, one after another, all of them connected: Elmhurst and Villa Park and Lombard and Glen Ellyn, yellow and red flags snapping in the wind at used car dealers, a long cluttered stretch of A&W Root Beer stands, laundromats, auto parts stores. Then a sign for a town called Wheaton, and suddenly wide streets and great trees and houses set in an expanse of green, with porches all around, houses lived in for a hundred years, old houses from another time.

     She slowed and tried to think what it would have been to grow up in a town like this, on a hot afternoon in August, sitting on a front porch in white shorts, barefoot, with a hot wind rising. At the edge of town she stopped to let a tall boy cross the road. He loped along, not to hold her up, raising his hand in a small gesture of thanks.

     She should probably stop and call ahead. He could be away, be out of town, it could be a bad time for her to show up. She didn't stop because she knew it didn't matter if he was there or not. She had a name and an address and a phone number, she had an excuse, and it was all she needed.

     Then she was out of town and there was nothing but cornfields and an expanse of country that stretched out flat and forever, a country so wide that even the occasional farmhouse seemed only to emphasize its great emptiness.

     Road signs loomed, a light flashed a detour. She followed the arrows, swinging onto a narrow blacktop lane that cut straight into the wide green heart of the August land, a road narrow and slick and rimmed with cornfields rustling high, the earth plowed to the very lip of the roadway. There was no end to it, none at all, as far as she could see. She was alone in a red Mustang riding a country road into the heart of nowhere. She stepped hard on the gas, gulping in the air. It didn't matter how fast she went, she knew that she was never going to get there, never going to reach the other side.

     She glanced at her watch. It was one in the afternoon and suddenly it was dark. The clouds that had been threatening closed in, the wind was rising, blowing, she could feel it coming . . . something was coming. She slowed the car, waiting, listening as the wind raced flat and hard through the dry cornstalks, the sound a hollow rasping that echoed into the clouds and expanded, like the swelling song of some infernal choir.

     A crack of lightning shattered the sky and then the sound hit her full force, thunderous and bone-rocking, and she shook with the shuddering blow of it. The wind rattled through the cornstalks, seven feet high all around her, reaching a crescendo, but all she could see was the straight path of the road ahead. She felt the first drops on her arm, heard them as they hit the roof and splattered. She reached across the passenger's seat to close the window, just as a second flash of lightning pierced the sky ahead. She braced herself for the thunder roll, her skin went cold and she shivered. It was raining hard now, so hard she could barely make out the road, she squinted and leaned forward to peer through a small patch cleared by the windshield wipers. The rain flooded the windows, she could not see at all but she was afraid to stop, afraid to be still, afraid not to be in motion. The light and the sound surrounded her, crashed around her and drowned her in noise, in the staccato drumming of rain on the roof, in a long silver shriek. Was it her? Had she screamed?

     She glimpsed something through the water that coursed down the windshield, blinding her, something dark and massive across the roadway . . . Branches? A tree? She pulled hard at the wheel, the car spun, turning and sliding. She felt it slip into the soft mud and stop. The water coursed down the windows so that she could not see out. She was trapped, caught, and the noise of the storm filled her head. Shaking, she put her hands over her ears and longed to cry for help but she couldn't think who to cry out to.

     Not mother, not father. No one.

     Karin and Faith and the twins were waiting for her at Kit's apartment, waiting for her with streamers and balloons and a banner that said Welcome Home. She put her head on the steering wheel and sobbed, she emptied herself of tears too long stored, and then, exhausted, she sat with her arms wrapped around herself and waited. The rain would seem to let up for a time, but then it came throbbing down again, even more ferocious.

     She sensed it before she heard the noise, a rattling. Something was rattling the door handle. She turned her head and saw, through the water, a blur of red, a hand. Swollen, gnarled, pawing at the window. And then a face—misshapen, grotesque, and a mouth, black and yawing open, open and shut.

     Oh God, she whispered, Dear God.

     She turned away, hid her face, covered her ears. When she had the courage to turn back, it was gone.

     She sat until the rain spent itself, until it grew steady and then stopped altogether. She waited until the sky grew light, until finally it was bright. And then she stepped out into the world and breathed in the freshness of the earth after a summer's hard rain. She felt tired and drained and quiet. She was alive, and alone in the middle of a never-ending road in the midst of a great empty land. She stood alongside the mud-spattered Mustang which had spun around to face in the direction from which she had come before it sank to its hubcaps in the mud of the great plains. In the other direction a giant sycamore, felled by a lightning bolt, lay across the road.

     The air moved only enough to sound a soft rustling through the corn rows, other than that the silence was complete. At first she thought it was nothing, that her eyes were playing tricks. Then she saw that it was moving toward her, moving down the middle of the road. Five minutes more and she could make it out: a tractor. Another five minutes and she could hail the old man driving it, a big thick man in a red rain slicker and a baseball cap. He raised a gnarled old hand in greeting:

     Took me a spell to get back, but then I figured you wouldn't be going noplace. He grinned then, and his big horned face rearranged itself into kind folds.

     You frightened me, she said, and was surprised to hear her voice crack. If he heard she couldn't tell, he was already attaching a chain to the Mustang.

     When he had pulled it back on the road he took off his hat, retrieved a big blue handkerchief from its crown, wiped his face, and asked her where she was heading.

     Home, she said, her voice strong now, I'm going home.

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THREE

THEY ARRIVED TOGETHER, May and Karin and Sam, bumping and jostling, laughing and joking. Sam opened his arms to me in an expansive gesture. Faith, he said dramatically, just as Karin slipped between us to warn, half in earnest, we told him he could come if he promised to behave.

     You certainly look as if you're dressed to behave, I said, admiring his perfectly pressed slacks, tattersall shirt, and tweed jacket. The girls were in jeans and sweatshirts.

     Mr. Ivy League West here, May jibed as she headed for the kitchen, aims to impress.

     Impress whom? I laughed, these are pretty casual affairs.

     I'm never casual about affairs, Sam joked.

     Ignoring him, May called back, Kit. He finally gets to meet the illustrious Mrs. McCord.

     Every other Friday evening, May and Karin and Kit would come to my cottage for cracked crab and sourdough bread, salad, and wine: During crab season the menu never varied, but the guest list always did. Others were invited to liven the conversation— some of the young photographers who had discovered the work I had done in the twenties and thirties, and had found their way to my door, or people May and Karin had met at the University.

     It was an exciting time, those weeks and months that led from the summer of 1967 through the first of the year, but it was a fearful time as well. The ghettos of Newark and Detroit burst into flame during that long, hot summer, even while the young of the land made their way to San Francisco for what was called a summer of love. The girls in flowing paisley dresses and the boys with flowers in their long hair scattered over Golden Gate Park and the nearby Haight-Ashbury district in a haze of marijuana and incense. The hippies added the only gentle note that fall and winter. A Stop-the-Draft week demonstration in Oakland had erupted in violence, with police spraying marchers with chemical Mace and arresting hundreds. In San Francisco and in Boston and in Washington, D.C., the growing groundswell of opposition to the war in Vietnam could be measured by the hundreds of thousands who turned out for antiwar marches. At the Pentagon, the clash between marchers and police ended in mass arrests. Closer to home, the Black Panthers brandished their weapons in the California state capitol to make their point about black power.

     The talk at my get-togethers was spirited, to say the least. May teasingly referred to them as Faith's Fortnightly Salon. What she didn't seem to know was that they were my way of bringing her private world into some kind of balance with Kit's, that it was an attempt to bring them together.

     In the five months since May's return, she had stubbornly resisted most of Kit's overtures. At first May was polite, making up excuses that sounded plausible. Kit knew they were excuses, but she persevered until May stopped making excuses. When Kit became aware of the struggle she was causing between Karin and May, she saw the girls, only at my cottage.

     The air seemed to constrict when Kit approached May. Karin did her best to ease the tension and so did I, and it took all of our energy. Still, I was convinced that if we kept at it, if May and Kit were brought together often enough, something would happen to shake May, to bring her to her senses.

     What did it mean, to her senses? I did not know. I did not know how my view of Kit could be so different from May's. I did not understand how—or why—May had lost faith in a woman who was devoted to her completely, who was prepared to love her without conditions.

     Still, I believe that change is possible. I believe that love—that strange act of courage—can be surprisingly tough if well rooted, can lie dormant under the leaves of many seasons. I believed, I fervently hoped, that if I could find where it lay buried and bring it to the light, it could flourish and grow. And so, the fortnightly crab and sourdough sessions.

     I explained this to no one, Kit least of all, but I expect she knew. Little ever missed Kit's notice.

     There were times when I thought my plan might actually work, times when even Kit must have felt a flicker of hope. The Friday that Sam Nakamura came was such a time. That evening I had invited two young photographers who were studying at the Art Institute. They had been working on a show the Institute was mounting of my photographs taken in the early years of the war, of the Japanese-Americans who were interned in the so-called relocation camps for the duration under Executive Order No. 9066. It was May's idea to ask Sam, who had been born at the camp at Tule Lake.

     When I found myself alone with May in the kitchen she said, I'm glad you noticed Sam's finery. He's been planning his wardrobe all week. It's all calculated to make the rest of us feel slightly uncomfortable. That's because he doesn't feel very comfortable with tonight's subject.

     I nodded. I would expect Sam to be angry.

     He is, she answered. Prepare for fireworks. She gave me a light kiss on the cheek and a pat on the shoulder before rejoining the others, and it occurred to me that May was looking forward to the fireworks.

     Kit came in a few minutes later, carrying a plastic shopping bag full of Dungeness crab and apologizing for being late. She is as trim at sixty-one as she was at forty-one, I do believe—she looks too young for gray hair. With that husky voice and trim style, she somehow reminds me of Lauren Bacall. There's something glamorous about Kit. Always has been.

     Sam introduced himself before the girls had a chance, saying, I finally get to meet the fabulous Mrs. McCord.

     Fabulous? Kit laughed. What a nice thing to be called on a Friday night. Turning to me she added, apologetically, I had to wait for Frank to crack the crab. I rushed him so he didn't do a grand job. I think I'd better repair to the kitchen and finish up.

     Let me help, Karin said. May frowned into the magazine she had been leafing through. Kit smiled and stage-whispered, Thanks, but I think I'll enlist Sam. Maybe he'll pay me another compliment.

     It was May who started the discussion that night. Tell us about Faith's show, she asked a young photographer named Nancy Caravello, who proceeded to launch into the kind of rhapsody that is embarrassing. I intended to interrupt as soon as I decently could but Sam got there first.

     You don't have to describe the pictures, we all know them, he said brusquely, and asked me, what I want to know is why you took them.

     Nancy's face flushed a bright red, and I wanted to reassure her, to take the sting out of his rebuff, but Sam spoke with such urgency that I could only think to answer him.

     It was a terrible time, I began. Innocent, confused people—civilians, many of them citizens—were being herded into detention camps. Concentration camps, for the first time in this country's history. It was a human tragedy, an American tragedy, and I wanted to record it.

     After that awkward opening, the conversation moved easily around the table, everybody eager to take part while the bowls in the center of the table gradually filled with empty crab shells. The photography students entered the conversation, drawing on the research they had done in connection with the show. Their enthusiasm for the subject was greater than their grasp of the facts. The more the two expounded, the more agitated Sam became.

     The war hysteria was part of it, Jeff, an intense young man, ended a monologue. You have to remember that people actually believed the Japanese were going to invade California.

     Sam's patience gave out. That is not what I have to remember, he said, and besides, who believed that? Certainly not all those white folks who moved in to take over Japanese properties at five cents on the dollar.

     I'm not saying it was right, Jeff muttered.

     Sam came back, Then what the hell are you saying?

     Nancy, her voice shaking with emotion, rushed in, What Jeff meant about war hysteria was that you have to put it in the context of the times. Then she added, And I think it's important to remember that being locked up wasn't the worst thing that could happen. Our people were being killed. Giving Sam a look of quiet triumph, she finished: My father was killed, by the Japanese, on Guadalcanal.

     Sam stared at her steadily for a moment, then said in a tone that was almost conciliatory, Your name is Caravello. Italian, right? Your father was probably an American citizen. So was my Uncle Hideo. He was with the 442nd Battalion, which was all Japanese in case you didn't know, and he died in Italy at the Gothic Line. Do you think the local Italian community should be held responsible for his death?

     Nancy, flustered, did not know what to answer, so I broke in. As it happens, many of us disapproved of that executive order and some of us— I paused to emphasize the next words—"white folks did what we could to fight it. In fact, I said, Kit did as much as anybody. She was the one who got me into the camps to do the photos."

     Now Sam turned to Kit, his voice betraying a grudging surprise. How did you do that?

     For a long moment Kit concentrated on removing a large morsel of crab from a leg. She did not like to be the center of attention at these gatherings, and her answer was purposely vague: I was working with a group who toured the camps regularly.

     Toured? Sam asked archly, as in touring the zoo?

     Unlike poor Nancy, Kit would not rise to his bait. As in touring a prison, she said easily, to see if the prisoners were being treated humanely.

     Sam shrugged but Karin, who had been listening intently, picked up. What group was it, Kit? And how did you get involved?

     The Quakers. The Friends were about the only religious group who came out against the camps, and they did their best to help. I was just one of the volunteers. We weren't able to do all that much. Just little things, really. Once I got a special formula for a new baby. But I did get into the camps often enough to make some friends, and when Faith wanted to come in to photograph—to make a historical record, actually—they accepted her.

     I went on to explain, "Without Kit, I could never have done the most moving of the photos—the sick child on the cot, the teenage girl looking out through the barbed wire at the young guard, the tiny cubicle