The Dancehall Years Read online

  Do you want my help?

  Of course I want your help. You’re part of my family now.

  Silverdale

  61.

  September, 1977

  In the city, Jenny’s living with one leg hanging out the window. Doesn’t even want eye contact in the mornings. Gwen’s on the phone to her mother when her daughter comes downstairs and sidles past, muttering that she’s going to Oakridge to buy clothes to take to San Francisco.

  I don’t know where Isabelle is, Mom. I’m worried. She was here, now she’s gone. I don’t like to call and worry Jack in case she hasn’t come back there.

  Is Eugene still there? says Ada.

  No, he’s left.

  Isabelle will be in touch when she’s ready. She has a lot on her plate.

  She wanted to see me, Mom, says Gwen. She even gave me Jack’s letters from prison camp to read. Hang on a minute. There’s someone on the other line. Maybe it’s her. But it’s not. It’s an agent about some extra film work. They want her to come down to Hastings and Nanaimo for a night shoot. Would Ada take the girls? Of course Ada will take the girls. When has she not taken the girls?

  That afternoon, Isabelle’s over at the Gallagher cottage walking around plumping cushions, wrapping and unwrapping the white dress. Is that a mildew smell? She finds some old Ivory Snow under the sink, washes the dress and spreads it on a towel in front of the fire. The phone rings.

  There you are, Auntie, Gwen says.

  Here I am.

  What are you doing at Bowen? Your note says something’s come up.

  I have something to tell you, Gwen, but it may take a little time. I need you to trust me and wait.

  But I wanted you to meet Shima, Auntie. She’s Takumi Yoshito’s daughter. I was about to call you in from the garden, and you’d gone. I need to know what’s going on.

  You will. I promise.

  At Nanaimo St., the street signs have been replaced with the names of New York streets and the restaurants converted to delicatessens. Good, they say, when Gwen arrives. They’ve finally sent someone middle-aged. They must be talking about the woman in the line behind her, but no, she’s handed a frumpy polyester blouse, thick tweed skirt and told to walk down Hastings to Nanaimo and drop plums from a shopping bag as she goes. When she hears a gunshot, she’s to run into a nearby grocery store.

  After that section of the shoot, she and the other extras spread their sleeping bags on the community centre floor, where she lies studying Bloom’s taxonomy with a flashlight. The shoot continues deep into the night. At three AM, they wake her up and tell her to drive her car around the block; the section of script they’re working on occurs at six PM, and at six PM there’d be street traffic. A traffic monitor in a fluorescent vest motions her car into the lineup; when her head starts to nod on her chest, she slaps her face to stay awake, but keeps falling asleep again. Nothing to do but park for a minute to sort herself out. The next thing she knows, the traffic monitor is knocking at the window.

  Gwen Killam! What are you doing here? It’s Jeanette of all people, dressed in a suit jacket, her grey hair in a crew cut. Bending over her car window as if to give her a ticket, she motions the cars in the lineup behind her to pass. If this isn’t just…, she says.

  I’m too old for this. I should be home in bed.

  You’re too old? Where do you live now?

  20th Ave. just east of Cambie.

  For heaven sake, we’re at Main and 32nd.

  Gwen should visit; why don’t they set a date? Once the time is jotted down on Jeanette’s wrist, she suggests they wrap her. Gwen sticks the envelope of cash in her pocket and goes home to bed.

  When Isabelle gets back to Birch Bay, Jack is out on the tide flats. So it’s done, he says to her when he comes in. You’ve planted it. Wonder how long it will take for the termites to chew through the bridge trestle?

  That’s not where I was, says Isabelle. That was back when you were a prisoner of war. We live here now.

  That girl who came here that day. Who was she?

  Gwen. Our niece. Jack, I have some good news. I had a daughter a long time ago, and I’ve found her. I thought she was dead.

  Am I her father?

  No, she says softly.

  When she came here, did she think I was her father?

  She hasn’t been here yet, sweetheart. It was before we were married, when you were overseas.

  So someone lived inside you before I went there? I thought so. Isabelle, if we get enough food on the other side of the bridge, it won’t matter if it collapses, the enemy won’t reach us. Soon you’ll be leaving, he adds.

  I won’t be leaving. I love you too. But she’s the only daughter I have. We have to find a way to bring her into our lives.

  That’s all to the good then, isn’t it?

  It’s all to the good.

  She smiles with a deep glow he’s never seen before.

  Frances and Jeanette’s house is a grey shingled affair on a narrow shady lot near Little Mountain. It has a romantic garden with white iron garden furniture and a magnolia tree. Varied brightly coloured walls inside, newly painted as if they’d come back from Mexico and said, the way people do, we really must get some colour in this place.

  Frances is in the garden, sitting at a table covered in a flowered cloth. Chintz curtains at the window. Rose bushes. Lemonade all round.

  I love your magnolia tree, Gwen says.

  Turns out they have something to tell her. They’re going to get married as soon as it’s legal, which won’t be too long from now. When they do tie the knot, guess where they want to have the wedding?

  Beats me, says Gwen.

  In the dancehall. That way Derek can be with us.

  It’s not until they’re sitting on the bed where Shima was conceived that Lottie opens the bottom drawer and hands the young woman the box with the dress inside. (Of course I remember you, Shima’d said when Lottie called. How could you think I wouldn’t?) Shima unfastens the satin bow, holds the dress up by its shoulders.

  It’s a present for you, says Lottie. From your mother. She brought me here and showed it to me.

  I don’t have a mother.

  You do. You’ve even seen her. And it’s not her fault. They told her you were dead as well.

  Where did I see her?

  At Gwen’s. She was planting flowers, she said.

  Oh her! Does she know I’m me?

  She does.

  62.

  On sunny days when the pressure is high on the Prince Rupert shore, outflow winds start up suddenly because the ground warms up faster than the sea. Until last year, Takumi’d spent the winters fishing the sea urchin beds: demand for urchins in the sushi restaurants in Vancouver and Prince Rupert meant that it’d been worth his while to hire divers to unscrew the spiked globes and fill outsized net bags. But now that the otters have begun to repopulate, the pickings are so slim it’s not worth it.

  What is it about having an old letter from Shima tacked to his bulletin board the way his father used to pin seed envelopes above his desk in the greenhouse that gives him his clue? He’s in his studio molding unrefined silver, pushing his grey hair under a bandana as he blows hot air through the fuigo. Reaching up, he flaps the envelope with his finger. Even as he blows—the oxides of lead are absorbed by the bone and pine needle ash, and the silver remains on top—he sees his father asking his mother to stretch her mouth over her teeth, worried that the blue line along her gums might be a symptom of lead poisoning caused by the contamination from the silver mine that leeched into the village groundwater back home in Japan. If you’re ever lost, tell the person who finds you that you live over the hill past Millers Landing at the Scarborough farm. The announcers in the cuckoo clock that Noriko brought with her from the village, a present from a Dutch trading company her family had done business with, will chime out that he’s home. Tapping the envelope again, he looks up at his daughter’s signature, Shima Yoshito. His mother’s hand is on his shoulder again until h
e repeats what she said because that was what her mother said to her. If she’s ever lost, her mother instructed her, say you live in the Shimane district, in the town of Omori. All along Noriko’s location was in her name. Shima. Shimane. The clue to his parents’ village has been staring him in the face since he found her.

  Dad?

  Shima. I’m so glad you called. I need to come and talk to you.

  I want to talk to you too, she says. I’m on the island in the Gallagher cottage. Lottie brought me here and says I should stay until you get here.

  I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  Dad, says Shima when Takumi comes up the verandah stairs. Dad, she says, pulling back the blanket she’d hung along the beam to block the wind. Dad, she says passing him the box with the knitted baby dress. My mother made this for me. Lottie just found out that they told her I was dead. She wanted me to tell you. I saw her at Gwen’s, but she didn’t know who I was. She overheard me saying my mother was dead. What’re we going to do? She knows who I am, but she hasn’t come to me.

  Yes, she has, he says. He touches the dress tenderly. It’s going to be okay. I was so hurt because I thought she’d abandoned you; saying she was dead was a way of speaking, but it was wrong of me.

  Yes, it was..

  And something else, says Takumi. I can’t believe this, but the name of the area where my parents lived was in your name the whole time. It’s where they probably returned. They talked about a row of village houses built for the workers who made the Iwami silver. We can write to them together.

  Dad, look at this. Lottie showed me something else. She reaches over and slides the family jewels stone lid from its basin. In it lies the silver lifeguard whistle his mother’d brought when she came from Japan. He holds it in his hand like a talisman while he anxiously makes the phone call.

  Isabelle? This is Takumi.

  No.

  I’m here.

  I can’t believe you’re here. Where’s here?

  On the island. With Shima. She showed me the dress you made. May we see you?

  Is that what she wants?

  He covers the mouthpiece. Shima’s sitting on one of the old cots by the window. She wants to know if you want to see her. Shima nods. Yes, she does. Where? The Sylvia Hotel?

  Isabelle? Mom?

  Oh Shima. Are you really there? With your father?

  I’m really here with my father.

  I can’t wait to see you both.

  When they get to the hotel, Isabelle’s sitting nervously in the lounge. She stands up when they come in and reaches out a hand for each of them. Her eyes meet Takumi’s at last. When Shima steps forward, her perimeter is sharper as if the person she stepped from is nobody’s business. Coats are flung over chairs, and they’re all three in each other’s arms crying too much to worry whether they’re standing up or sitting down. They can hardly stop holding each other’s hands to even breathe.

  63.

  Over at 20th Ave., Jenny’s on the line from San Francisco. Her mother’s not to be upset, but Dad wonders, well she wonders. She and Maya both wonder. They’re having a good time in California. They’d like to stay on. She can start college there and… do you want to speak to Dad?

  I would like to speak to Dad.

  Life goes on, Mom.

  Life does, does it?

  Gwen? How are you? Good. The girls say, well they say they’d like to spend next year here, then see how it goes.

  Do you think you can help Jenny settle down?

  I do. Do you want to speak to Maya?

  I want to speak to Maya.

  Dad wants us to stay here for a while, Mommy.

  That’s okay if you want to, honey. Do you like it there?

  I do, but I miss you.

  I sure miss you too, but there are holidays. Let’s talk about it some more and then see how everybody feels.

  Okay.

  After hanging up, she goes into each of their rooms and starts packing. Seeing their clothes the way Eugene would, everything looks scruffy, as if the play is over and the house lights are back up. He wouldn’t want any of this stuff.

  Looking out the window, she sees Isabelle coming up the path by the impatiens. She goes down to her in tears. I’m glad to see you, Auntie.

  What is it, sweetheart?

  It’s the girls. They say they want to stay in San Francisco with their dad. Guess he’s got more to offer when you come right down to it. Expensive private schools for a start. They’re going to be so far away. How’ll I keep in touch?

  You’ll stay in touch, says Isabelle, taking her in her arms. When she sees Shima pulling up to the curb, she smiles like someone rejoicing that the sun is arcing higher on the horizon when all winter she thought it might never come back. This time when Shima comes around the fender in her seersucker suit, the same narrow amused smile plays around both their eyes.

  Oh God, says Gwen. How couldn’t I have seen this before? It’s right here in front of me. You’re her mother.

  It was a mistake. It was a terrible mistake, says Shima. My Dad was so bitter he lied to me. But now that you see us together…?

  I see the obvious. It’s wonderful, a miracle. Does Mother know?

  I think you’d better talk to her about that, says Isabelle.

  64.

  Ada’s washed her long grey-white hair, has it spread over a towel around her shoulders. Set the waves with bobby pins. A pile of large hair pins ready to fasten her French roll. These are gold, Gwen, she says holding one up. If you ever see any, buy them.

  Mom, she says kissing her cheek. I have more news. How couldn’t I have seen it before? I’ve found out Isabelle is Shima’s mother. Takumi thought Auntie had abandoned her and was so angry when he found Shima in Blaine with Lottie Fenn, he told Shima her mother had died. Did you know he spent the war way up the coast in the bush? Isabelle wasn’t married and had to have her adopted, right? You’d have known about that.

  Ada twists up her hair and fastens a hair pin. The skin on her hand is thinner, papery. Fingerprints would stay in place longer. People kept things like that secret in those days, Gwen. Have they met each other, then?

  They’ve all three met each other. You and Auntie will make up now, right? You have a new niece. Auntie will forgive you about the Scarborough house. She’s so happy, I’m sure she’ll let it go. You should call her.

  Ada straightens her placemat and looks out the window at her garden. I’ll think I’ll wait for her to call me, she says.

  65.

  Are you married? Takumi asks a radiant Isabelle as they’re walking on the seawall.

  I am, she says, suddenly thin and deadened. We live in Birch Bay; we have a store and a café. I want the two of you to stay in the cottage for a bit, she says. It’s my time over there, and I have the say.

  That night, Shima sleeps in the front room of the Gallagher cottage, her father in the back bedroom where the flaw still runs down the mirror. In the morning, he climbs the south slope of the cove up and over the hill to the abandoned September Morn shack where he’d heard their goods had been stored. George has moved to the new seniors’ home. He hopes to find some of his old drawings, at least the one of himself and Isabelle lying in the meadow, so that he can give it to her, but there’s nothing there except an old bedstead and some cutlery.

  Dear Mr. and Ms. Yoshito,

  As requested, we conducted a search here at the Family Registry Office of Omori under the names Mr. & Mrs. Shinsuke and Noriko Yoshito. Unfortunately, our records show that both Yoshitos are deceased, Mrs. Yoshito on April 26th, 1974 and Mr. Yoshito, July 9th, 1975. They repatriated here after WWII. Please find enclosed a copy of the page of the family registry that includes their names.

  Regretfully yours,

  Shoji Matano

  Town Clerk, Omori Town Hall

  66.

  The next time the phone rings at 20th Ave., it’s a school superintendent from the Central Interior calling to tell Gwen she’s been recommended by the Vancouver
supervisor who’d overseen her practicum. They’re offering her a long-term substitute position teaching English and Humanities in a mining town up near Smithers. She should think halfway between Prince George and Prince Rupert.

  As soon as she’s hung up, she knows she’s going. I’m going to get in an airplane and fly due north. In the next couple of weeks, she manages to sublet the house, get books and school materials off to the girls and buy herself some teaching clothes. On a clear fall morning, she flies up and over miles and miles of uninhabited peaks, then so many isolated lakes and rivers appear below the plane she’s taken aback to see the small settlement of Silverdale scrabbled on the land under the wing. The four corners of the unfolding valley are held into place by paperweights of cut-edged mountains, the Telkwa Range all slanted ledges, lines cutting the sky with ice daggers and wedges that cross the slopes’ expanse diagonal by diagonal. Deep blue hills shoulder the pale sky as the Babine Range fastens down another corner. Across from Smithers airport, a huge griz claw swipes ski runs down a slope on Hudson Bay Mountain.

  She hires a car and starts down a long stretch of highway past a curve, another curve, more sweeping fields that alternate with stands of lodgepole pine. Between the time she’s sighted a house on the horizon and arrived alongside it, she’s passed a small lake, another field or two, a stand of trembling aspen and yet another field, as a roll of hay disappears out the back window. A shadow of cloud sweeps over a meadow above tree line, flies past and wings flat up against a ridge. The hay in the fields rolls into silage, long packages covered with white plastic like gigantic cut-up cigarettes. Puffs of low-hanging clouds darken one hill, cast a shadow over another. In the summer and early fall, even the clear-cuts look like golf courses. At one rest stop, a hitch-hiker is sound asleep among the magenta shafts of fire-weed. Flat on his back, his head rests on his backpack, wild clover in the background.

  The entrance to the town of Silverdale is monumented by a bulldozer down on its knees on a plinth like a young dinosaur doing yoga. The mill yards spread in back: pile upon pile of stems beside the outsized beehive burners that look like massive shuttlecocks. The burners were supposed to have been closed down years ago but have some kind of special dispensation. A hedge of new trucks for sale. The creek running into the Bulkley River is dead, killed long ago by seepage from the silver mine. The tailings have to be monitored in perpetuity. Perpetuity is a long time.