Evergreen

Informationen zum Autor Naomi Hirahara Klappentext "Los Angeles, 1946: It's been two years since Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar detention center and resettled in Chicago with other Japanese Americans. Now the Itos have finally been allowed to return home to California--but nothing is as they left it. The entire Japanese American community is starting from scratch, with thousands of people living in dismal refugee camps while they struggle to find new houses and jobs in over-crowded Los Angeles. Aki is working as a nurse's aide at the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights when an elderly Issei man is admitted with suspicious injuries. When she seeks out his son, she is shocked to recognize her husband's best friend, Babe Watanabe. Could Babe be guilty of elder abuse? Only a few days later, Little Tokyo is rocked by a murder at the low-income hotel where the Watanabes have been staying. When the cops start sniffing around Aki's home, she begins to worry that the violence tearing through her community might threaten her family. What secrets have the Watanabes been hiding, and can Aki protect her husband from getting tangled up in their mess?"--]cProvided by publisher. Leseprobe Chapter 1 I had only been working at the Japanese Hospital on Fickett Street for a month when Haruki Watanabe was brought into an examination room. The one Issei doctor on call was treating a patient who had been suffering from severe hypertension. It was up to me to take Mr. Watanabe’s vitals and update his medical chart. I was only a nurse’s aide, not a full-fledged nurse, but the hospital had just reopened in spring 1946, three years after we had been sent away, and the facility was severely understaffed.      Mr. Watanabe had sad eyes with bags that drooped down onto his sagging cheeks. Everything about his face seemed to be melting away. His lip was swollen and the side of his face was beet red, inflamed from some kind of trauma. The only sign of vigor was in his hair, still jet-black and abundant, like a badger’s coat, despite his fifty-two years.      I put the glass thermometer under his tongue, which was thick and streaked with bacteria. His temperature was a little higher than normal.      I gently took hold of his wrist, which was sturdier than I expected, to take his pulse. His pulse was fast, but that was not unusual when people came for emergency care. I spied something red on his upper arm and lifted his shirtsleeve. Bruises the pattern and color of smashed raspberries—not fresh, but not months old, either.      “What’s happened here?”      “ Nandemonai ,” he said in a low voice, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. Realizing that I was a Nisei and might not understand much Japanese, he said it in English, too. “Nothing.”      I got a cotton gown out of the cupboard and left it next to him on the examination table. “Can you get dressed in this?”      “ Doushite? I only have my head problems.”      “The doctor will probably want to do a thorough checkup.”      “No need,” he insisted.      “Please, Watanabe- san ,” I said as firmly as I could. I had found that attaching san to their names usually softened the most distraught of Issei patients.      I left the examination room, closing the door behind me to give him some privacy.      Dr. Isokane appeared from around the corner. He had been in Santa Anita Assembly Center and then Manzanar, like us, and then Topaz after that, serving other Japanese Americans in bleak wartime camps. He was older than my father and should have been thinking of retirement, but instead he had dedicated himself to those who had been exiled.      “Isokane- sensei .” I handed him Mr. Watanabe’s medical chart and shared my concerns about the bruises on his arm.      The doctor didn’t reveal any emotion. He was trained, after all, not to be sho...

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Naomi Hirahara
• Verlag: Soho Press
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Fester Einband
• Erschienen: 01.08.2023
• EAN: 9781641293594
• ISBN: 978-1-64129-359-4
• Seiten: 312
• Abmessung: 160 mm x 235 mm x 26 mm
• Serie: A Japantown Mystery
• Thema: Belletristik > Spannung