Which is precisely why I’d like to relate a happier experience from this period, one in which Wrieto-San again called on me to travel with him on business. It must have been in 1937 or 1938—my memory and the notes I’ve saved from that time are in conflict here — but it was certainly before the great gulf of the war came between us. Wrieto-San, as it happened, was in need of a new automobile — or to be more precise, two new automobiles. We were by then caravanning annually to Taliesin West, which tended to take a toll on our vehicles, and this was the ostensible rationale for our trip to the automobile dealer’s showroom in Chicago, but, in fact, as has been indicated above, Wrieto-San didn’t concern himself so much with needs as he did with wants. He wanted the newest model of Lincoln automobile, the Lincoln Zephyr, and when Wrieto-San wanted something, he always — always, without fail — got it.
I suppose he brought me along that day as a sort of foil, a strange face to put the salesman off his guard, but of course I saw nothing of that — I was simply pleased and honored to be at his side, no matter my function. In any case, he strutted grandly through the door of the showroom, tricked out in all his Beaux Arts finery, the ends of his senatorial tie flowing and his cane tapping at the gleaming tiles of the floor, while I brought up the rear. The salesman — a sort of Babbitt-type, portly, glowing, pleased with himself — came sailing out of the office and across the floor like a liner out on the sea, his hand outstretched in greeting. He could see in a moment that Wrieto-San was someone great, a dynamo, a prince among men, but I’m not sure if he recognized him at first.
“Yes,” Wrieto-San said, studying the man’s hand a moment before clenching it in his own, “I’ve come for this car.” He used his cane as a pointer. The Zephyr stood there in all its aerodynamic beauty, with its grill of chrome shining like the teeth of some fierce predatory animal, the skirts that extended the sculpted chassis and the long tapering wonder of the cab. It was a magnificent thing, elegant and brutal at the same time, its hood concealing the peerless V-12 engine that would tear up the road and transform its competitors into tiny gleams in the rearview mirror. I saw it and wanted it myself. Anyone would have. It was the pinnacle of automotive perfection.
“Good,” the salesman said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of his commission, and then he launched into a fulsome speech about the car’s features and reliability, going on at such length that Wrieto-San, exasperated, finally cut him off.
“Can it be that you don’t recognize me?” he said.
“Why, yes”—the salesman faltered—“of course I do.”
I heard my own voice then, though I’d intended to remain silent — and watchful. “Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright,” I said, and I had to restrain myself from bowing.
The man slapped his forehead. “Mr. Wright,” he intoned, as if he were offering up a prayer, “of course, of course. It’s an honor, sir, a great honor.” And then he was pumping Wrieto-San’s hand all over again.
When he was finished, when he got done wriggling and grinning and running a hand through his hair and straightening his tie, he stared expectantly at Wrieto-San, who gave me one of his patented looks (we apprentices liked to call it the boa-constrictor-swallowing-the-rat look), then turned back to the salesman. “I’ll want two of them,” he pronounced. “And I’ll want them cut off here”—an abrupt slashing movement of the cane that sliced an imaginary line from the windshield to the rear window—“so that convertible tops can be installed.” He paused. “They’ll need to be painted, of course, in Cherokee red,” he added, turning to me. “Tadashi, you have the color sample, do you not?”
“Yes, Wrieto-San,” I said, and this time I did bow as I handed over the sheet of paper decorated with the red square.
And then, as that seemed to have concluded the business, Wrieto-San turned to leave, but stopped before he’d gone five steps. “Oh, yes,” he said, his voice as self-assured as any senator’s on the stump, “I’ll want delivery within the month. And I won’t be paying. You do understand that, don’t you?”
We got a great deal of use out of those cars. They were every bit as powerful and rugged — not to mention elegant — as advertised. And they were especially useful for longer treks — to Arizona, to visit clients and construction sites in the late thirties and early forties, when we were busily engaged with the building of Florida Southern College, the Community Church in Kansas City, the Sturges House in California and any number of other far-flung projects. And, of course, their performance was all the more satisfying because Wrieto-San did not pay a nickel for them, nor was he expected to. Just as he’d calculated, the Lincoln Automotive Company was delighted to advertise just what make and model the world’s greatest architect chose to drive.
This anecdote, illustrative as it is both of Wrieto-San’s magnetism and his audacity, brings me to the darkest period of my time with him, if you except the contretemps over Daisy. I’m referring now to events that went far beyond the scale of what any of us at Taliesin or anywhere else in America could have imagined or foreseen — that is, the bombing of Pearl Harbor by my native people, and the consequences it had for me, a Japanese national living by dint of a student visa in the trammeled hills of Wisconsin. Nothing could have protected me from the backlash, not even the power and influence of Wrieto-San himself. Looking back on it, I don’t know that any of us could have done anything differently.
The year prior to the “sneak attack,” as the press liked to call it, I’d gone down to the local police department to register and have my fingerprints taken as required by Section 31 of the Alien Registration Act, but I really hadn’t thought much about it. The militarists in my country had been rattling their sabers, as had their counterparts in Germany and Italy, and it seemed a reasonable precaution on the part of the U.S. government to attempt to keep an eye on citizens of the belligerent countries despite the fact that war had not yet been declared. I suppose I did feel a degree of shame over the posturing of my countrymen (not to mention the savage and dehumanizing way they were depicted in the American press, which, of course, lumped all Japanese in the same barbarian’s boat regardless of outlook or cultural attainments), and yet the experience of registering alongside a dozen or so local Italians and Germans wasn’t particularly troublesome or traumatic in any way. In fact, on that wintry afternoon nearly a year and a half later — December seventh, that is — I’d forgotten entirely about it.
I remember coming in to lunch just after the bell had rung, only to find the dining room deserted. Puzzled, I poked my head in the kitchen. No one was there, not even Mabel, who was as much a fixture of the place as its furniture. The stove was hot, a cauldron of soup steaming atop it, the room warm and redolent. Coffee was brewing. There was half a sliced ham on the countertop and several loaves of bread cooling beside it. Dishcloths, vegetable peels, ladles, knives and all the rest of the culinary appurtenances were scattered about in evidence of recent activity. But no Mabel. And no sign of the apprentice who was to serve as sous-chef and plongeur—or any of my colleagues, who should by that time have been bellying up to the counter with their plates in hand. I went to the window to peer out into the yard (this was at Hillside, where most of the apprentices were now living and working) to see if some disaster had struck in the time it had taken me to leave the drafting room, cross the property to the main house to fetch the set of plans Wrieto-San had sent me for and make my way back again.