Hawaii - James Michener [482]
Then in 1938, during Goro's last year at McKinley High, a real bombshell struck the Sakagawa family, an event so unanticipated that it left the household breathless. One afternoon in late July three men in blue suits came to the house in Kakaako and asked, "Mrs. Sakagawa, where's Tadao?"
Yoriko could speak little English, so she said, "Tadao, he not here."
"When he come home?" one of the men in a stiff white collar asked.
"Me not know."
"Tonight?"
"Hontoni, hontoni!” she nodded. "For sure."
"You tell him to wait here," the men said, and if they had smiled, as they should have done, they would have eased the apprehensions of the Sakagawa household enormously, but they did not, for Mrs. Sakagawa, hunched up from great work and somewhat wrinkled, scared them, and they stared at her as she stared at them.
When the family convened that night, Mrs. Sakagawa was the center of attraction. Four times she acted her role in the afternoon's ominous encounter, and everyone began pressing seventeen-year-old Tadao for the details of what offense he had committed, for the family assumed that the men were detectives. No other haoles in blue suits and white collars ever visited Japanese homes, and slowly the unincriminated members of the Sakagawa family began to coalesce against the first Sakagawa boy to have gotten into trouble. The awful, terrifying rectitude of the Japanese family asserted itself, and Reiko-chan cried, "You, Tadao. What did you do? All day I work and see no-goods on Hotel Street. Is my brother to be one of these?"
"Tadao!" Kamejiro cried, banging the table. "What wrong thing have you done?"
The tall, quiet boy could not answer, so his stockier brother Goro shouted, "You and your damned foolishness! Suppose the police take you, no more teams at McKinley for you. And I'll be ashamed to go on the field. Tell us! What have you done?"
The guiltless and bewildered boy shivered before the anger of his family. So far as he knew he had done nothing, yet the men had been there. Kamejiro, who had worked desperately hard to keep his family decent Japanese of whom Hiroshima would be proud, saw that his efforts had come to naught, and began mumbling in his hands. "No man can bring children up right," he swore, his chin trembling with shame and sorrow.
There was a knock at the door, and the Sakagawas looked at each other with last-minute dismay. "You stand there!" Kamejiro whispered to his son, placing him where the men could reach him. There would be no running away in his family. Then, biting his lip to hide his disgrace, he opened the door.
"Mr. Sakagawa?" the leader asked. "I'm Hewlett Janders, and this is John Whipple Hoxworth, and this gentleman in back," and he laughed easily, "this is Hoxworth Hale. Good evening." The three business leaders of Hawaii entered the small room, stood awkwardly for a moment, then laughed when Reiko called in English, "Boys, get them some chairs!"
"We could use some," big Hewlett Janders laughed. "Mighty fine house you have here, Mr. Sakagawa. Rarely see such beautiful flowers any more. You must have a green thumb."
Goro translated rapidly and Kamejiro bowed. "Tell them I love flowers," he said. Goro translated this and apologized: "Father is ashamed of his English."
"You certainly handle the language well," Hewlett replied. "You're Goro, I take it?"
"Yes, sir."
The three men looked at him approvingly, and finally Hewlett said, jokingly, "You're the young fellow we hate."
Goro blushed, and Reiko-chan interrupted, asking, "We thought it was Tadao you wanted to see. This is Tadao."
"We know, Miss Sakagawa. But this is the young rascal we worry about."
There was a moment's suspense. No one quite knew what was happening, nor what odd turn this strange meeting was going to take next. It was Hoxworth Hale, oldest and most prim of