The Metropolitans Read online

  It had all begun because of the surprise Kiku had planned for the new exhibit. Miss Lake had helped her late last night. Together they had come up with the idea of displaying some of the Japanese armor to tie the new armor exhibit to the Edo period Japanese screens in the balcony above the hall of Arms and Armor.

  The Japanese armor was usually displayed in the basement. Kiku had often heard her father complain that because Far Eastern art was crammed into the basement and balcony galleries, the collection could not be presented chronologically or in any coherent order. And so Kiku, with Miss Lake’s help, had come up with the idea of placing a few of the objects of Japanese armor in the first-floor gallery with a sign indicating that more Japanese art could be seen in the balcony galleries above. She had selected a suit of armor of the Edo period, which stood now in the rear gallery with a sign that invited visitors to continue their exploration of Japanese art on the second-floor balcony. She had steered her father, who usually retreated to the Far Eastern study room in the basement before the museum opened, to the Arms and Armor hall to show him her surprise.

  He had been surprised. His eyes had widened as he read the sign Miss Lake had had printed. Then he had turned to her and in a low but penetrating voice asked, “What have you done, foolish girl?”

  “I-I thought this would bring more visitors to the balcony. You are always saying that no one notices the paintings up there.”

  “Do you think now is the time to be noticed?” he asked.

  Kiku felt the blood rush to her face. Her father made it sound as if she had deliberately tried to bring attention to herself, like the one time she had put on lipstick and face powder and he had made her scrub them off before leaving the house.

  “B-but Mother always said that if the Americans understood Japanese culture better—”

  He had turned deathly pale, and Kiku knew she had made a mistake to mention her mother. Three months ago her mother had gone back to Japan to visit her own mother, who was sick. Her father had been against her going. This is our country now! he had said. If war breaks out, you may never be allowed back. Now he spoke to Kiku in the same angry voice.

  “And this is how you want them to understand us better? By setting up a suit of armor like a clothes mannequin?”

  “But all the armor is displayed like that down here—and the armor is one of the most popular exhibits in the museum. All the children love the knights. I thought if they saw that we had knights too—”

  “Do you think”—he enunciated each word slowly as if casting doubt on the idea that she was capable of thought—“that we should be drawing attention to our martial history while Japan invades China and forms an alliance with the Germans?”

  “Oh!” The blood that had risen to her face drained down to the tips of her toes, leaving her feeling empty and light-headed. “I didn’t think—”

  “No, you did not think. What else have you done?” He had stormed up to the balcony to see the new cards she and Miss Lake had made, leading the curious visitor through the exhibit of fifteenth-century screens. He read each one aloud in a mocking voice, turning each description into a boastful declaration of war, his face turning the dangerous purple of storm clouds.

  “I was only trying to bring more visitors to your exhibit,” she kept saying, trailing after him. “You worked so hard!”

  “Are we fishmongers in the market, hawking day-old fish?” he demanded. “Is this what you have learned in your American school? To sell yourself like a . . .”

  He had finished the sentence with a word she had never heard before. And then his eyes had moved from her face to a spot two inches over her right shoulder and he told her that he could no longer look at her. He had grown blurred—as if he were the one vanishing into the mist of one of his favorite landscape paintings. Scholar lifted into the clouds after the disappointment of a worthless daughter. She had turned and run away from him, heading for the basement workroom, where she could hide behind the ancient screens awaiting restoration, wishing she could vanish so she’d never have to see that look of disappointment on her father’s face again.

  It was bad enough that the girls at school whispered behind her back. Trina van der Hoek called her a squinty-eyed Jap, and Gertrude Pillager had spilled yellow paint on her in art class and said no one would notice. People on the street stared at her as if she were an enemy spy. Now her own father had looked at her as if she were a stranger.

  He had come downstairs eventually to restore a tear in a fourteenth-century scroll, but instead of talking to her, he had turned on the radio, to a football game between his beloved Dodgers and the Giants. She had thought that working on the scroll and listening to the game would calm him down, but then an announcer had broken into the game.

  “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. Flash! Washington—The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”

  He had stood up, letting the priceless scroll slip from his fingers and fall to the floor, unfurling like a waterfall.

  “We must take down the suit of armor before anyone sees it,” he had said, walking out of the workroom like an automaton. Kiku caught up with him on the stairs. “Perhaps it’s a hoax,” she told him. “Like when they said the Martians had invaded and it was just a play by Mr. Welles.” Kiku bit her lip, thinking that it would be far better if the Martians had attacked than if it were true that the Japanese had. What would happen to her mother? She’d never be allowed to come back now! How would the girls at school look at her? And what would happen to her father and her?

  She followed him up to the gallery and toward the back where a janitor was sweeping up glass. One of the display cases at the back of the hall, the one that had held that beautiful medieval manuscript page, was broken.

  “He saw the broken glass case,” Kiku told Miss Lake now, “and he said, ‘It has begun.’ Then he fell to the floor. . . .” Like the scroll, unfurling, plummeting to earth. “I didn’t know what to do.” She held out her hands to show her helplessness, and the girl with red hair gasped. Kiku looked down. Bits of glass were embedded in her hands.

  “You did the only thing you could do,” the redhead said, cradling Kiku’s hand in hers and picking out the glass. Along with the broken glass from the display case, there were flecks of gold paint embedded in her skin. “You called for help. That was the right thing to do.”

  “There was nothing else you could do,” Miss Lake said, pressing her hand to Kiku’s father’s neck and holding a silver vial of smelling salts to his nose. He stirred and murmured something Kiku couldn’t understand.

  “I think it was only the shock,” Miss Lake said. “His heartbeat is steady. You ought to get him home.”

  “We ought to get him to the police.”

  Kiku looked up to see the new head of security glaring down at her father, her round glasses opaque in the glare of the ceiling lights, fisted hands on her narrow hips, her face as fierce as the ceremonial mask of the Japanese warrior. Since Miss Fitzbane had started at the museum last month, she had looked at Kiku and her father as if they were spies sent from Japan to steal museum artifacts. Even when Kiku recognized the creature on her pin as an amphisbaena and complimented her on it, Miss Fitzbane had snapped, “Some chill-drun are too smart for their own good!” Now she was staring at Kiku as if she was responsible for her own father lying on the floor.

  “This man is now an enemy alien. He was fleeing the museum with confidential papers—look!” She pointed at the broken display case. “He’s even broken into one of the exhibits.”

  “That wasn’t—” the redhead began, but Dr. Bean stepped in front of Miss Fitzbane.

  “There was a break-in, Miss . . . er . . .”

  “Fitzbane,” the woman spit out. “Which you would have remembered, Dr. Bean, if you ever bothered coming to any of the meetings I’ve called.”

  “Dr. B
ean’s been rather busy,” Miss Lake said. “And as for Mr. Akiyama, I believe that Fred the janitor can confirm he only came onto the scene after the break-in. Would you please call the director and let him know we’ll need extra security for the Asian exhibits? There could be a misdirected attack on them.”

  Miss Fitzbane glared at Dr. Bean and Miss Lake. “I shall speak to the director right away about having this enemy alien removed from the museum.” She looked down at Mr. Akiyama, who, revived by Miss Lake’s smelling salts, was sitting up and looking confusedly around him. Miss Fitzbane lowered her voice to a whisper that came out like the hiss of a snake. “He could be a spy.”

  “Kenji Akiyama has lived in this country since he was eighteen years old,” Dr. Bean said. “Why, we were undergraduates at Columbia together! I will personally vouch for him.” He turned and looked at Mr. Akiyama, who stood swaying between Miss Lake and Kiku, and spoke to him in Japanese. “My friend, the enemy I warned you about has arisen. Now is the time for us to stand together. Remember that a single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle.” Kiku’s father straightened his shoulders and bowed his head. Miss Fitzbane’s face turned even whiter. Why had he spoken to her father in Japanese? Now Miss Fitzbane would think they were all spies. We may all be arrested!

  As if to confirm her fears, a uniformed security guard appeared in the gallery. “There’s a phone call for Dr. Bean,” he said. “They said it was the War Department.”

  “The War Department!” Miss Fitzbane shrilled at the guard. “They were probably having you on, Jenkins.”

  “I know you haven’t been here long, Miss Fitzbane,” Miss Lake said coolly. “So perhaps you don’t realize that Dr. Bean is a consultant to the War Department.”

  Miss Fitzbane glared at Miss Lake. “I may not have been here as long as you, Miss Lake, but I’ve been here long enough to recognize an enemy when I see one.”

  Kiku was shocked. No one talked to Miss Lake like that! She turned to Miss Lake to see how she would respond and got an even bigger surprise. Miss Lake’s lips had turned white and the icy blonde wave of her hair trembled. Kiku was sure she was going to tell Miss Fitzbane off, but instead she turned to Dr. Bean. “You’d better take that call, Dash. I can bring Kiku and her father home.”

  “We can go with her,” the tall boy with dark hair said. He had been quiet since arriving upstairs, cautiously scanning the faces of the angry adults as if fighting the urge to flee. “It’s like you just said, Dr. Bean: ‘A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle.’”

  “Did he? I don’t remember—” Walt began, but the redhead cut in.

  “Yeah, we got to stick together.” She put her arm around Kiku’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get your pa home and make him a nice cup of tea.”

  Kiku nodded gratefully. “My mother always says there is no problem so big that it can’t be solved over a cup of tea.” And then her eyes filled with tears as she thought of what her mother must be thinking thousands of miles away in Japan, and she wondered once more if she’d ever see her again.

  “My mother said that too,” the redhead said, looking away. Have I said something wrong? Kiku wondered.

  “I’ve always found that the answers to all life’s problems are to be found at the bottom of a teapot,” Miss Lake said, giving Dr. Bean a sharp look. “You three go with Kiku. I’ll take you out the back exit and help you get a taxi. Here’s cab fare.” She produced a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Jeez Louise,” the redhead exclaimed. “Do you think we’re taking him back to Japan?”

  “Here,” Miss Lake said, slipping the money into the girl’s coat pocket along with a handkerchief. “You’ll need this.” Then she turned to Kiku. “You can trust Madge. She always says exactly what she means. And Walt”—she nodded to the freckled boy—“is stronger than he looks, and Joe will fight anyone who tries to hurt you or your father. What they all need is someone with a level head, so you’d better look after them, Kiku.”

  Kiku nodded, confused about why or how she could look after anyone, but she trusted Miss Lake, so she would try to trust the others. As they walked down the stairs, she turned to the dark-haired boy—Joe—and asked, “How do you know Japanese?”

  “Me?” he asked, his eyes widening.

  “Yes, that saying about the arrows. Dr. Bean said it in Japanese.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t speak a word of it.”

  * * *

  There was a crowd outside the museum, jockeying for taxis. Everyone wanted to get home to be with their families or their sweethearts. “We’ll never get one,” Kiku fretted. But Madge stepped through the crowd, past a woman in a fur coat with half a dozen shopping bags from Bergdorf’s and Saks, put two fingers in her mouth, and whistled over a Checker cab with its off-duty light on.

  “I gotta get my uncle Syd to the hospital,” Madge told the driver as Kiku gaped at her. “I think he’s had a heart attack.”

  “Are youse blind?” the driver asked, pointing to his off-duty light. “I gotta get home to Canarsie to see my sweetheart before I enlist—” but then he looked at Madge’s pleading eyes and he stammered to a stop. “Shucks, doll face, pile in. Which hospital?”

  “Oh, we have to go home first.” Madge nudged Kiku, who gave the driver her home address and then asked if it was all right if her father rode in the front because he got carsick in the back.

  “This is your uncle Syd?” the driver asked, looking at Mr. Akiyama, who had closed his eyes. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was asleep, but Kiku knew that this was what he did when he had a headache. “He looks—”

  “Chinese,” Kiku said, remembering that her father had told her Americans couldn’t tell the difference and no one was mad at the Chinese. “We are both Chinese. My cousin here”—she nodded at Madge—“her aunt was a missionary who married my father.”

  “Yeah, Aunt Jean the missionary,” Madge said, giving Kiku an admiring look as she sat down next to her on the backseat. Joe and Walt sat on the jump seats facing them.

  The cab driver just shook his head. “Whatever you say. I’ve been driving a cab in New York for ten years—there’s nothing I ain’t seen.”

  The traffic was jammed going down Fifth Avenue. “Jeez Louise,” Madge said. “Everyone and their uncle seems to have decided to go home at the same time.”

  “They’re scared,” Walt said. “It’s like when the soldiers came to our neighborhood back home. Everyone would hide inside their homes. They’re afraid of another attack.”

  “An attack on New York?” Madge asked, shocked. “They wouldn’t dare!”

  “You heard what was in that message—” He clamped his hand over his mouth and looked at Kiku, his face turning bright red.

  “What?” Kiku challenged him. “Are you afraid I’m a spy?”

  “Of course not,” Walt said, lowering his voice to a whisper so the taxi driver couldn’t hear. “Only Dr. Bean told us some pretty crazy stuff.”

  “If it has anything to do with my father, you’d better tell me right now.”

  “It’s not about your father,” Joe replied. “It’s about the page in that display case. It was stolen by a man in a trench coat.”

  “Did he have a gray hat and eyes that felt like ice picks?” Kiku asked.

  “You saw him?” Walt asked.

  “I-I dreamed about him last night,” she said in a small, scared whisper.

  “You too?” Joe, Madge, and Walt all said.

  They stared at one another. The interior of the taxi suddenly felt very close, as if all the air had been sucked out of it.

  “The Kelmsbury said four knights would arise in times of evil,” Walt said. “You must be the fourth knight.”

  “You’re not telling me you bought all that malarkey?” Madge asked. “About knights and prophecies and lost books and being called to vanquish evil? Bes
ides, Dr. Bean said it couldn’t be us because we’re just kids.”

  “B-but Dr. Bean said—” Walt began.

  “The doc seemed a nice enough fellow,” Madge said. “But with maybe a couple of screws loose.”

  “Dr. Bean is a bit eccentric,” Kiku said. She was thinking about what Dr. Bean had whispered to her father about an enemy. What had he meant? Was there more to their friendship than a shared fondness for Japanese medieval armor and the Dodgers? “But he has always been kind to my father”—she leaned forward to check on her father in the front seat, but he still had his eyes closed—“and my father says that he’s an honorable man. What else did he tell you?”

  Walt leaned eagerly toward Kiku and in a hushed, excited whisper told her what the message from the spy had said. “We’ll need the rest of the book to finish decoding it,” he added.

  “I liked looking at that page,” Kiku said when he had finished. “There was something magical about it. Before Dr. Bean put it on display, it was in the Arms and Armor workroom and Miss Lake used to let me come in and look at it whenever I liked. But I don’t know where the rest of the book is. Sir Bricklebank told me it was lost.”

  “Isn’t that the fellow the doc said went crazy and hid the book?” Madge asked.

  “He was rather odd,” Kiku said fondly. “I once found a laundry ticket of his stuffed in a Ming vase.”

  “Of course!” Walt slapped his forehead. “You know your way around the museum. You’ll be able to help us find the book.”

  Kiku smiled sadly at Walt. “I do know my way around the museum, but I don’t think that I can help you. You saw how Miss Fitzbane looked at my father and me. Do you really think he will be allowed to go on working at the museum? Or that I’ll even be allowed back in? Look at all these people—”