The Japanese Lover(21)

Takao reached the coast of California with two changes of clothes, a hand-tinted portrait of his mother and father, and the samurai sword that had been in his family for seven generations. His father handed it to him when they bade farewell, because he could not give it to any of his daughters. Even if his son were never to use it, the sword belonged to him by right. This katana was the Fukudas’ sole treasure. It was made of the finest steel folded and refolded sixteen times by ancient craftsmen; its hilt was of wrought silver and bronze, and its wooden scabbard was decorated with red lacquer and gold leaf. Takao traveled with it wrapped in sacks for protection, but its long, curved shape was unmistakable. The men who shared the ship’s hold with him during the tedious crossing treated him with due deference, as the weapon proved he was from a distinguished family.

After disembarking, he immediately received help from the tiny Oomoto community in San Francisco, and a few days later he found a job as a gardener for a compatriot. Far from the reproving gaze of his father, who thought a soldier should never dirty his hands with soil, only with blood, Takao devoted himself to learning this new skill, and it was not long before he established a reputation among the issei who made a living from agriculture. He worked tirelessly and lived frugally and virtuously as his religion required, so that in less than ten years he had saved the necessary eight hundred dollars to bring a wife over from Japan. The marriage broker offered him three candidates and he selected the first, because he liked her name, Heideko. Takao went down to await her arrival at the dock in his one and only suit, bought thirdhand and worn shiny at the elbows and on the backside, but well made; his shoes were polished and he wore a Panama hat he had bought in Chinatown. The fiancée he had sent for turned out to be a peasant girl ten years younger than him. She was stockily built, with a placid expression but a resolute temperament, and she was always ready to speak her mind. As he could tell from the very first moment, she was much less submissive than the marriage broker had suggested. Once he had recovered from the initial shock, Takao decided that this strength of character was a definite advantage.

Heideko arrived in California with few illusions. On board ship, where she had shared the narrow space allotted her with a dozen other girls in a similar situation, she had heard terrible stories of innocent virgins like her who had faced the dangers of the ocean in order to marry well-off young men in America, only to discover that waiting on the quayside to receive them were impecunious old men, or in the worst cases, pimps who sold them into prostitution or as slaves in clandestine workshops. This did not happen to her, as Takao Fukuda had sent her a recent photograph and did not lie to her about his situation, telling her he could only offer a life of effort and hard work, but one that was honorable and less backbreaking than that of her village in Japan. They had four children: first Charles, Megumi, and James, and then years later, in 1932, when Heideko thought she was no longer fertile, Ichimei arrived. He was premature and so puny that they thought he would not survive, and so did not give him a name for the first few months. His mother built up his strength as best she could with herbal infusions, acupuncture sessions, and cold water, until by some miracle it began to seem as though he would pull through. It was then that they gave him a Japanese name, unlike his brothers, who had been given English first names that were easy to pronounce in America. They called him Ichimei, meaning “life,” “light,” “brilliance,” or “star,” according to the kanji, or ideogram, used to represent it. From the age of three, he could swim like an eel, at first in local pools and then in the freezing waters of San Francisco Bay. His father molded his character through hard physical work, a love of plants, and martial arts.



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At the time Ichimei was born, the Fukuda family was struggling to deal with the worst years of the Great Depression. They rented a plot of land on the edge of San Francisco, where they grew vegetables and fruit trees to supply local markets. Takao supplemented his income by working for the Belascos, the first family to employ him when he set up independently from the Japanese colleague who introduced him to gardening. His reputation was such that Isaac Belasco invited him to create the garden for a property he had recently acquired at Sea Cliff, where he wanted to build a house that would stay in the family for at least a century, as he joked to his architect, little thinking that his joke might come true. His law firm was not short of funds, as he now represented the California Western Railroad and Navigation Company; Isaac was one of the few businessmen who did not suffer during the crisis. He kept his money in gold and invested it in fishing boats, a sawmill, mechanics’ workshops, a laundry, and other such businesses. In doing so his intention was to employ some of the desperate folk who lined up outside the charity soup kitchens, so that he could help alleviate their misery, but this altruistic goal brought him unexpected benefits. While the house was being built according to his wife’s extravagant whims, Isaac shared with Takao his dream of reproducing the plant life of other latitudes on a steep hillside exposed to fog and wind. As they began the process of turning this crazy dream into reality, Isaac Belasco and Takao Fukuda established a respectful relationship. Together they read the catalogs, selected and ordered the trees and plants from other continents, which arrived wrapped in damp sacks with the original soil still sticking to their roots; together they pored over the instruction manual and assembled the glass greenhouse shipped piece by piece from London like a jigsaw puzzle; and together they kept this eclectic Garden of Eden alive.