The fog had cleared some, but not completely. Long, opaque fingers stubbornly held onto the edges of the chocolate-brown furrows. Mas knew that strawberry picking started early, but not as early as he’d imagined. He parked the Ford along a dirt road on Jimi Jabami’s farm. It was a relatively small one, only about five acres, just a postage stamp compared to the immense farms that paid allegiance to the kingdoms of larger distributors. Jimi was definitely on the side of Sugarberry, a smaller cooperative that was founded by his father and four other Japanese partners, including Shug’s father.
A few minutes before seven, the cars started arriving. Minivans, Toyota sedans, old Buicks—all in better shape than Mas’s truck. The pickers, both men and women, seemed in better shape than Mas as well. They were mostly in their twenties and late thirties, wearing hoodie sweatshirts and tying bandanas over their mouths. He was surprised to see some kind of manager in the fields; the old Jimi that he’d known was more hands-on. The manager checked all the pickers in; there was obviously some kind of routine. Mas had heard that everything was regulated now, with the government wanting a piece of every transaction.
The strawberry boxes were more streamlined, but other than that, not much had changed in the actual picking. For harvesting most fruits and vegetables, machines had taken over, because hadn’t they taken over much of everything? But strawberries were different. Their red meat was delicate, easily bruised. The only way to pick them off their stems was with human hands. Hands that belonged to a body that was constantly hunched over.
Someone turned on an old battery-powered radio and Spanish-language music spilled out over the furrows. Mas preferred to do his outside work in silence. Nothing was completely silent, of course, when you were working with gasoline-powered blowers or even equipment that was unplugged or unmotorized. There was the gari-gari of the rake and the shu-shu of the water from the hose. Work was music to him, so he didn’t think much of these pickers’ selection. But then, the manager probably figured that if the beat leads to one extra box of strawberries being packed, then let the beat go on.
The pickers ignored Mas because he seemed like just part of the landscape. Another old Japanese farmer whose days were numbered. A new generation had arrived, and they, like the old, were here to stay.
Jimi Jabami wasn’t a gossip or the town’s historian, but he was a watcher. He watched people fight. He watched people say warukuchi about someone else when his or her back was turned. He watched couples exchange knowing glances before sneaking into packing sheds and corporate offices after hours.
He was as predictable and ever-present as a daily vitamin or blood pressure medicine. Seemingly innocuous, but if you ignored him, you might be risking your life.
Jimi watched a familiar figure from his kitchen window. The body was certainly that of an Arai, short and sinewy. The face had that kind of openness that could be welcoming if bent with a smile. But it was turned inward, the mouth a straight line. The man was watching the fields and now the house.
Jimi had seen this Arai at the funeral. This one sat in the back, and that was the first sign that he might be trouble. Jimi could deal with men who had to be at the front of the line, the center of attention. Hadn’t Shug, in fact, been that kind of man? Jimi hoped that Shug had suffered like he and his family had suffered, would suffer, but his death seemed almost not eventful enough. Jimi looked out the window. This Arai was now walking up the walkway to his door. He would let him in.
To Mas, Jimi Jabami actually looked about the same as back in the 1940s, but only because he’d resembled an old man for most of his life. His face was broad and his eyes bulged out slightly like an owl’s. And now, with the crown on Jimi’s head pure white, Mas, more than ever, could imagine a supernatural version of the old man perched on a tree. Jimi was known as being one of the best cooks in town, celebrated for his pies and cakes. He had apparently been a junior cook at the mess hall in Poston, Arizona, during World War II. Back then he’d won over not a few fans for baking leftover clumps of rice with some sugar to create sweets reminiscent of treats Mari created with cereal and melted marshmallow. When it was rhubarb season, usually in mid to late spring, Jimi’s phone would be ringing off the hook for people wanting him to donate his signature pies to the latest temple fund-raiser.
This morning Mas would be treated to apple cobbler. He felt embarrassed because he’d abruptly arrived with nothing in hand. He had come to say hello to Jimi’s wife, Ats, as well as to get a handle on the situation in Watsonville these days. Any Nisei or even Sansei, in his daughter Mari’s case, knew enough that you needed to bring a six-pack of Coke or even a wilting pot of lilies—hell, it was only kimochi! What did the hakujin say, it’s the thought that counts. And here Mas did not have the decency to come with even one simple thought.
What made matters even worse was that Ats was ill, ill enough for her to be hidden behind her bedroom door.
Atsuko, or Ats, as most everyone called her, had been a bright flame to give balance to Jimi’s subdued personality. Her presence had given life to her husband, but now, with her out of the room, Jimi seemed faded, his energy extinguished. Even his ever-watchful eyes looked cloudy. He appeared to not quite remember Mas.
“I live in the house for coupla years,” Mas said.
Jimi continued to stare at Mas, as if he were going through some old photos in a tattered album. “How are you connected to Shug Arai?”
Mas frowned. Had this old man really forgotten? Mas knew that he wasn’t that memorable, but it seemed like inaka folks were better at keeping accounts with the past. “Cousin of cousin.”
“Second cousins.” Jimi’s face flushed with recognition for a moment, and Mas hoped the light bulb had turned on. “You the one who got in some trouble.”
Mas felt his body lurch forward. He hadn’t heard about that incident in about fifty years. Since that time, so much had happened—he had moved to Los Angeles, started his gardening business, got married, and raised a daughter. Life brought its share of semi-criminal activity—secret poker games, questionable practices at horse races—but nothing big enough to involve law enforcement, until quite recently. He and Shug, in fact, had an unspoken vow. Never mention it again. So both had buried the youthful indiscretion, the crime committed when they were still in their teens.
“I, I,” Mas stuttered, not knowing how to proceed.
Jimi’s mind seemed to be clicking and processing information like an old-time computer. “Ats was living at the house at the same time you were.”
Eager to change the subject, Mas nodded. “I picked strawberries for you back in forty-eight.” He quickly steered the conversation back to his original purpose. “I knowsu your papa, smart guy, start Sugarberry with Shug’s papa.”
“You didn’t know my father.” Jimi pushed his half-eaten plate of apple cobbler away. “What have they said about him?”
Mas was confused. It wasn’t as if he was being a gossip. It was public knowledge that before World War II, Goro Jabami had been an amateur hybridizer who’d learned about mixing strawberry varieties out in the fields rather than in the classroom.
“My father did the work. That Wataru Arai was just the talker. The money man. He had that house.”
Mas kept quiet, so quiet that he could almost hear himself breathe. In the nearby bedroom, faint moaning. “They make new poison to killsu bugs spreading yaro I hear.”
“Well, that’s news to me,” Jimi snapped back. “Can’t fix yellows through pesticide. It’s a mystery—not sure if it’s a virus, bugs, genetics, what.”
Someone was knocking at the door and Mas was relieved. He had come here simply for straightforward information, and now he was encountering major curves in the road.
“Jimi, take a look at this.” It was the field manager, holding some dug-out strawberry plants.
Jimi ushered the man into his living room, not bothering to introduce him to Mas. Taking out a magnifying glass from a drawer, he examined the strawberry-plant leaves, which were curled and yellowed.
“Shit,” Jimi said. “How many?”
“The whole north side.”
Jimi covered his face with his brown, callused hands, and Mas felt the enormity of the moment. The strawberry must be sick, he thought, and the culprit must be the talk of the town, strawberry yellows.
Jimi followed the manager out the front door to the porch.
“Tell them to dig them out,” Mas heard Jimi say.
The manager, his voice muffled, then said something back.
“Yeah, all of them. Got to get them out before they spread.”
The door opened and shut. Jimi, even more broken, shuffled back into his home. He was practically bent over, as if someone had punched him in the gut. He seemed surprised to see Mas still sitting there at the living room table.
Mas immediately rose. He felt like he needed to apologize or express his sympathy in some way. The death of a crop was a death in the family.
“Tell Ats hallo, ne,” was all he could manage.
After Mas left Jimi Jabami’s home, he felt unsettled. Jimi had around five years over Mas, but always seemed much, much older. Perhaps it was because he was the big boss of the tiny strawberry farm, one of the few who actually owned land in Watsonville during World War II. And with people trickling back into town in the late 1940s, laying their heads down in any legitimate space, whether it be in a hallway of a home or the temple sanctuary, Jabami Farms was one of the biggest things going.
Mas wasn’t sure what had happened to Jimi’s father, Goro. Back then, as they bent over to pull the red fruit off of stems, he heard grumblings from his relatives and the other Nisei workers who now had to answer to Jimi: “Ole man was a lot better. Gave more water breaks. More money for each filled crate.”
The workers soon adopted a nickname for their new boss. Jimi Jama, jama for interference. For there wasn’t a day in which Jimi wouldn’t correct their work, tell them they needed to leave more of the stem on the picked strawberry, work from the bottom to the top of their crate.
Ats, however, never complained. She was one of the few girls out there—rumor was that her parents and brother had gone back to Japan on a repatriation boat and she was left by herself in the U.S. She often had to stop and wipe her face from the sweat and steam from her overheated body. Mas half-expected Jimi to come out in the fields and scold her for not keeping a steady rhythm to her picking. The fact that he didn’t was definitely an early sign that he was sweet on Ats.
Ats didn’t expect much from people, yet she wasn’t a typical loner type, either. She was prone to bursts of laughter, which surprised Mas at first, the sharp sounds of a machine gun. It was if she was storing her laughter like rounds of ammunition, and then releasing it at the most unexpected times.
So he understood what Jimi “Jama” saw in Ats. Mas just wasn’t quite sure what she saw in him. He was stable, a landowner. But a bit odd as well. He was an only son, an only child, and Mas figured that made Jimi view the world in a solitary way. He’d always just hoped that Ats wouldn’t lose her laughter along the way. And, based on the dim house and her closed bedroom, she apparently had.
Mas drove back to the motel, his head full of memories of his days in Watsonville. He had not called either his daughter Mari or Genessee for a day now, and he felt that the past was starting to overtake the present.
He parked in an empty space in front of the motel and walked toward the back, where his room was located. Before he could remove his worn wallet from his pocket to get his room key card, he saw that the door was wide open and the window broken. The window screen had been removed and was leaning against the outside wall.
“What the hell?” Mas mumbled.
A housekeeping cart overflowing with wrapped bars of soap, towels, and tiny bottles of shampoo was blocking the walkway. A thin, dark-haired young woman, wearing an apron and a name tag that read “Cecilia” appeared from the back of the cart.
“You can’t go in there, sir. The police are on their way.”
Seated in the lobby, Mas mentally went through the contents of his Santa Anita Racetrack duffel bag. Dirty laundry, extra pair of jeans, polo shirt that had been a gift from Mari. Nothing special and definitely nothing valuable. The funeral suit was reportedly still hanging in the closet. Purchased in Joseph’s store for short men in Little Tokyo, it had been a bargain back in the eighties.
Must have been a kid, he thought. Why he thought Mas would have anything worth stealing was beyond him.
“Too bad the security cameras aren’t working.” The maid, Cecilia, brought Mas a Coke from the vending machines. “I’ll tell the owner to get that fixed.”
A police officer was still up in the room, looking for evidence. Even though this was a minor crime incident, he’d contacted someone from the county’s forensics team to take fingerprints.
No need for all that, Mas thought.
“Are you related to the Arais who live in town?” asked the maid. “I noticed that you had the same last name.”
Mas looked up from his Coke, a little surprised. Most maids he encountered weren’t nosy like this one.
“My mom used to work for the Arais a long time ago.” Before she could finish elaborating, she was sent to deliver towels to a guest on the second floor.
“We’ll move you to another room,” the desk clerk with the nametag “Scott” said from behind the counter decorated with a giant white flower. He was young, too, maybe not even thirty. He typed something on a keyboard and checked a computer screen. “Perhaps something on a higher floor.”
“Don’t wanna be on top,” Mas said. The motel was at least four floors and Mas didn’t relish traipsing up three flight of stairs.
Scott smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that. The pool’s on the top floor. It’s open to guests most of the time, but sometimes it’s reserved for private parties.”
Hope those parties are not too yakamashii, Mas thought, not relishing any noise from outside disturbing his sleep.
The investigating officer finally arrived in the lobby after half an hour. “They’re dusting for fingerprints, but it doesn’t look too good.” He removed a notebook from his pocket and turned to the desk clerk. “About how many people do you have staying here?”
“It’s been totally full.”
“And no reports about any suspicious visitors?” His voice didn’t sound hopeful.
“I did see a truck drive off from the parking lot around ten in the morning. I mean, I noticed it because I hadn’t seen it before. It hadn’t been signed in.”
“A regular farm truck. Dirt around the tires and rims. It might have been a Chevy. Not sure.”
Dirty farm truck, a dime a dozen, thought Mas. Why did the boy find that worth mentioning? Did they know every single car driving in and out of their parking lot?
The officer’s radio squawked at his hip. He unclipped it from his belt and responded. He looked at Mas. “Do you have some time now? My lieutenant would like me to drive you to the station so you can answer a few questions.”
Once he arrived at the sheriff’s station, Mas was led into a small office with a tall bookcase that showcased a samurai sword and dozens of photos. There were photos of the uniformed Robin Arai with men and women of all colors, all dressed in suits. Although Mas didn’t recognize them, he had a feeling that he knew exactly what kind of people they were.
There were more photos crowded on an expansive oak desk that took up most of the space. These were people he definitely did recognize: Billy’s children, in graduation gowns, multiple colorful leis strung around their necks. An old black-and-white photo of Shug and Minnie at what looked like the Grand Canyon.
The younger Arai entered, her hair still in an immaculate gray-streaked bun. She made a point of closing the door to her jail-cell-size office before taking a seat behind her desk. She gestured for Mas to sit down in a worn metal chair.
“So it seems you’re around a lot of action. The Stem House and now a break-in at the motel.”
Mas sucked in his lips.
“Listen, I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Arai. I know that you were close to my aunt and uncle at one time, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But it seems like bad luck follows you. And the last thing our family needs is more bad luck.”
Mas was transported to the days when he was a schoolboy, being scolded by the teacher. He didn’t like it then and he didn’t like it now.
“Uncle Shug’s funeral is over. We have your statement from the Stem House and now today from the motel. We know how to reach you in—” Robin, with the aid of a pair of reading glasses, examined a sheet of paper in a manila folder. “Altadena. McNally Street. So you’re all set. Ready to go. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Arai?”
Mas didn’t indicate a yes or no, but he knew full well what was going on. He was being run out of his birthplace, the town of Watsonville, California.