Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [86]
‘There’s actually a dance floor just down the way. You’d have more space.’
‘I don’t dance.’
‘So I see.’
Ichir crossed to his bed, combed his hair and stared at himself critically in the small mirror hanging on the wall. ‘I’ll be back late. Got a date.’
‘A date?’ Joey looked sceptical. ‘What? Cocktails? A piano bar? Gourmet dinner –’
‘A date, Joey, does not require that stuff. Just the night sky and a little privacy.’
He was gone, and though the bouncy music still drifted through the darkness, for Joey the beat of life had gone out of it. He dropped on to the narrow cot and sat reviewing the brief, unsatisfactory evening. He found himself, like the old people he had glimpsed, staring blankly at the wood-stove. Blues in the Night.
A green dress printed with pinky-red blossoms. A crimson flower in her hair. A flower name. Lily. She had smiled, touched his arm, tentatively. He had behaved like an asshole.
He re-ran the scene in his head, changing the dialogue, reaching for a line to make her smile. She was about to laugh: would she throw back her head, American style, wide-mouthed, showing even white teeth, or would she stifle the impulse, cover her mouth with her hand in the traditional way of the old country?
Next time they met he would apologise; tell her he’d been in a lousy mood. She would forgive him, and they would linger over a canteen meal, cutting the overcooked fish into ever-smaller pieces, no longer aware of taste or texture. In the movie-house of his mind they were dancing; he touched her cheek.
Next day he looked for Lily but it seemed she and her parents had left Tule a couple of hours earlier: the Quakers had found a family to sponsor them in Boston.
That evening in the hut he noticed lying on the table by Ichir ’s bed, next to his watch and some candies wrapped in cellophane, a crumpled red flower. He picked it up.
‘Where did this come from?’
Glancing up from his book Ichir reached for one of the candies.
‘I told you I had a date.’
Was her name Lily? Joey wanted to ask. Did she – Did you –
He dropped the flower back on the table, picked up his towel and headed for the shower block.
On the next social evening Joey was approached by one of the ‘gaily attired girls’, one with fashionable, unnaturally curly hair. She tapped him playfully on the arm and asked him to dance.
‘My name’s Iris.’
‘Really?’
‘No, not really. It’s really Ayame, but that means iris. Well, really it means moonflower, but that’s way too Japanese!’ She laughed, showing her teeth.
As the music died away while Joey’s arms still encircled her, she tilted up her head and allowed her body to sag against his. She smelled of flowers and face powder.
‘Would you like to go on a date?’
‘Yes,’ he said fervently.
‘I have a rubber,’ she whispered. ‘Mail order.’
36
The presidential cavalcade moved slowly through the streets, Roosevelt waving, smiling his bright, paternal smile, cheered by his loyal subjects. As a morale-boosting exercise, FDR was visiting the shipyards and war industries in Oregon.
Nancy, part of the Democrat support team, moved with the parade, saw the President smile and wave from his open-topped limousine, cloak flung back from his shoulders. The sun glittered on his spectacles, masking his eyes. What was he thinking? He was a world figure