Mas followed Tug through the glass doors, down a dim corridor, and finally to a set of open double doors. The same Nisei man who had unlocked the metal gates earlier stood smiling, offering both Tug and Mas sheets of paper, a program of the morning’s events. It was too early for Mas to smile, so instead he bowed his head, surreptitiously brushing away a few grains of rice stuck to his sweater from the night before.
The main sanctuary was a narrow room with wooden pews, a stage, and a large cross in front. The unfamiliar room scared Mas. There were no windows-what would there be to look at, anyway? Most of the back pews were filled, black and gray heads everywhere. Most of them seemed to be Nisei old-timers like Tug, with a few younger Japanese foreign students, their hair misshapen from their pillows and sleep still in their eyes. Tug nodded to a few friends dressed in crisp suits and dresses, and Mas wondered which of them was the florist who might hold the key to the Mystery Gardenia.
Mas followed Tug in between a row of open pews. The hard seats were all set up to look forward and gaze at the cross. Mas imagined himself pinned down on that cross, his hands forced away from his body. He had only gone to church a couple of times with Chizuko, but that building was round with panels of windows. Mas didn’t know if it was the gardener in him, but he felt that anything holy had to have at least a speck of green in it.
Attached to the back of the pew in front of them was a compartment for big, thick books. At their feet was some kind of folded-up board covered with a thin cushion.
Holding open these thick books, the Nisei sang in English, the young ones in Japanese. Somehow the sounds merged together, comforting Mas’s ears, which hungered to hear the familiar rhythm of his two languages intertwined like crossed fishing lines. The rest of the service was downhill, with one suited speaker after another making announcements. At one point, Tug pulled down the cushioned contraption, which turned out to be a small padded bench. The whole line of worshipers then went down, kneeling on the bench. Mas didn’t want to seem rude, so he followed along, too. Everyone closed their eyes and recited a prayer, and Mas couldn’t help but think about Mari, Lloyd, and especially Takeo.
At the end of his speech, the Nisei minister, dressed in a heavy white gown, brought out a covered gold plate and a large cup. One by one, men and women, looking solemn and sad, went forward. They knelt down before the minister (your knees needed to be in good condition in Christianity, noted Mas), who picked up something from the now open plate and placed it in their mouths. They took turns sipping from the same cup-the minister wiped the rim each time with a white cloth. Mas doubted that was enough to kill the baikin that would make the whole lot of them sick. But Mas knew that it was important for them to share the same cup of germs and filth, because wasn’t that the way it worked with people and life, anyway?
When Tug returned to his seat, Mas noticed he was brushing away tears from the corners of his eyes. What did Tug have to mourn about? His life was perfect. A war hero with medals. Two healthy grandchildren. A son who made enough money to live in a 1970s ranch-style house near the ocean. This religion was a strange thing, thought Mas. Even the saints seemed to have regrets.
After the last prayer, the white-gowned minister walked down the aisle, breaking the silence among the people in the pews. Everyone got up, smiled, and talked. The real work was now ready to begin.
Mas followed Tug closely down the stairs to the basement. Tug had come to church before, so he seemed to quickly understand its practices, both during and after the service.
A number of old veterans and their wives stopped Tug on the steps and asked about his family.
“Oh, Joy didn’t make it again?” one person asked.
“Well, you know how it is.”
Another Nisei inquired about Joe.
“Joe and his wife have two kids,” Tug said, fiddling with the round “Go for Broke” pin attached to his tie. “He’s the manager of his department now.”
And then, to a question about why Lil wasn’t with him, Tug answered, “She wasn’t feeling well enough for this trip.”
Mas was surprised by Tug’s answers. Lil was supposed to be babysitting, right? And Tug himself had complained that Joe’s aerospace company was downsizing, and as a result, Joe had suffered a fifteen percent pay cut. Tug usually played it straight, so Mas was surprised his friend was blurring lines. But they were the lines of his life. None of Mas’s business.
Mas wandered to a table full of sweets and Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee and green tea. “Welcome, welcome. This is your first time here, right?” An old Nisei woman pressed down on the plastic top of a hot-water dispenser, releasing a stream of boiling water into a teakettle. She wore a bright pink and purple outfit, representing a young soul. But her skin, especially around her eyes and cheeks, was as flabby as the worn tread of a flat tire.
Ah, Mas thought, he was caught. Mas tried to ignore the woman, picking up a quartered chocolate glazed donut with a napkin and balancing a cup of hot tea in his other hand.
“Naughty, naughty. You should have stood up when the minister called out for new visitors. This is no place to be shy, you know.”
Mas bit into a donut. Even Tug knew well enough not to tell Mas to stand up in church, so he wasn’t going to heed the nagging of strangers.
Tug then arrived to save him. “Sorry about that, old man,” Tug said, grabbing a donut dusted in powdered sugar. Mas was happy that the basement was so crowded that he could take cover behind Tug’s massive body as if he were getting shade from a redwood tree.
His tactic worked, because the woman turned her attention to Tug. “Hey, you look familiar. Weren’t you at church on Sunday?”
“Yes, yes, I was.”
“Yes, and you actually stood up,” she said loudly, probably trying to make a point to the hidden Mas. “What’s your name?”
“Tug, Tug Yamada.”
“Yamada, Yamada.”
Mas squeezed his Styrofoam cup. Both he and Tug knew what was going to happen next. The woman was going to go through a whole list of Yamadas throughout New York, the East Coast, and then all of the U.S. Didn’t she realize that the Yamada name was pretty common, at least one of the top twenty back in Japan?
“No, no, no,” Tug replied each time to a reference to a certain Yamada she knew.
“You in camp?”
“ Heart Mountain, before I was drafted.”
“Oh, Wyoming, huh? I was in Rohwer, Arkansas.”
“My wife was in Arkansas,” said Tug. Mas noticed that Tug’s voice was becoming warmer, more interested. What was it about Nisei and camp? Sometimes it felt like an elite club to Mas, instead of a prison. But then, that was the way of the Nisei, especially the ones who had been able to reestablish their lives after World War II. In camp, they took discarded lumber and carved beautiful birds and assembled high-quality furniture. Now, years after camp, they made chrysanthemum flowers from clear plastic six-ring soda can holders. They had the knack of making beauty out of trash.
“Where were you before the war?” Tug asked.
“ Montebello. Flower growers.”
“ Montebello? I’m from San Dimas, just a few miles away.”
“We were neighbors, then. Haven’t gone back in twenty years.”
“You wouldn’t recognize it now. No more flower fields in Montebello, just malls and tract homes,” explained Tug.
“I need to get over there. I’ve been retired for a while now, and have been traveling throughout Europe. I do volunteer work at the New York Japanese American Social Service Center once a week.”