When she asked me to come with her, I frantically tried to think what I’d done that warranted her attention. I was sure it couldn’t be that she’d been walking by the music room and heard me sing “banana,” but as far as I could recall, I hadn’t committed any other offense that day.
She walked with me to her office, one hand on my shoulder all the way, which was unusual, as if she thought I might try to escape. When I glanced at her surreptitiously, I saw tears standing in her eyes. I thought that the punishment soon to be administered must be so dire, even this no-nonsense nun had pity for me.
Ushered ahead of Sister Agnes, entering her office, I startled when I saw my mother waiting there, standing at a window with a view of sycamores in early leaf. She turned when she heard us, and her face glistened with tears.
I ran to her, and she knelt to take me in her arms, and I asked what I had done. She said, “Nothing, sweetie, not you, you’ve done nothing. It’s your grandma. We don’t have her anymore, Jonah. We don’t have her. She passed away a little while ago, and she’s with God now.”
Ten months earlier, when Tony Lorenzo died, I had thought I knew what Mrs. Lorenzo must be feeling; but now I realized that I had not understood her pain at all. Surely it was as sharp as mine, and mine was excruciating, of such intensity that for a moment I couldn’t breathe. And then I thought, Grandpa Teddy, and I didn’t believe that I could bear to see him racked by grief.
Because Grandma Anita worked for Monsignor McCarthy and because she had done so much good for others in her life, the viewing before the funeral Mass was at the cathedral. So many flowers flanked and backdropped the casket. Among the usual roses and chrysanthemums stood a singular arrangement, not the largest but the most striking, consisting of white peonies with purple-tipped petals combined with purple orchids. I knew from whom they must have come. I took the condolence card from the arrangement and pocketed it. I read it much later, when I was alone in bed at Grandpa’s house and unable to sleep. The name of the sender was not included on the card, but it didn’t need to be. The neatly hand-printed message identified him, and I read it many times before sleep claimed me.
Dawn breaks
And blossoms open
Gates of paradise.
As I explained near the beginning of this story, we stayed with Grandpa Teddy for a week, and then we returned to our downtown walk-up.
I no longer allowed myself to be impatient for some word from Mr. Yabu Tamazaki of the Daily News or from the chatting-up expert, Mr. Nakama Otani. In a low-grade fever of superstition, I felt that my previous impatience, my desire for action, might have in part brought upon us the drama that I didn’t want, Grandma Anita’s death.
Sure, juju was probably nonsense, but if by some one-in-a-million chance it was not nonsense, then somewhere there was a photograph of me sleeping and a fabric eye that perhaps could watch me even from a great distance, and both were in the possession of a woman with purple-blue eyes and a bloody mind and the darkest of dark hearts, who would use those magical items if she knew how.
Nothing more of importance happened until June, when Mom quit her job at Slinky’s where Harmon Jessup, the owner, wanted more from her than she would ever give him, and accepted the better job at the first-class nightclub owned by William Murkett. Of course Murkett proved to be a dirty old tomcat, too, and Mother had to walk away from that job even before her first performance.
The night we moved out of the downtown walk-up, as Grandpa Teddy was loading our suitcases and shopping bags into his Cadillac and as my mother paid a visit to Mrs. Lorenzo, I raced up to the fifth floor to tell Mr. Yoshioka what was happening and to provide him with my grandfather’s phone number and address. I rang his bell repeatedly, but he didn’t answer.
If you want the truth, I felt a little heartsick about not being able to see him before we left. But I would be able to call him at his work number in the morning or at his home number the following evening. We wouldn’t be in the same neighborhood anymore, not close enough to have tea whenever we felt like it, but I was certain that we would see each other from time to time and that he would keep me informed about the investigation, such as it was. We shared secrets, after all, and secrets can bind people together as surely as does love. We shared an adversary, as well, one who had threatened both of us, and we had a mutual interest in bringing her to justice, regardless of whether she might be a wicked juju priestess or a scheming Bilderberger, or merely someone who liked to cut and who had conspired in the murder of her parents.
Our first few days at Grandpa Teddy’s house were quiet. But the uneasy peace of recent months would soon end.
46