The Japanese Lover

“Alma would leave with a lover’s haste, without saying where she was going or when she thought she’d be back. Two or three days would go by with no news from her, and then all at once, as unexpectedly as she had left, she would reappear, with a beaming smile on her face and her toy car’s gas tank nearly empty. Irina was in charge of her accounts and had seen the hotel receipts. She had also discovered that on these adventures Alma took the only two silk nightgowns she possessed, instead of her usual flannel pajamas.”

Alma’s behavior is reminiscent of a teenager sneaking out of the home of their parents to see a lover, and this passage serves to highlight how romance can be sustained into old age. Later, Cathy remarks how people eventually become like children, and Alma’s behavior seems to be a kind of reversion to adolescence. What matters most, however, is the “beaming smile” with which Alma returns, indicating that she is happy with her current arrangement.

“For a year now he had been unsuccessfully pressing them to flee Europe, as so many other Jews were doing. He had offered them hospitality, although the Mendels had ample means and did not need financial help from him. Baruj Mendel responded that Poland’s sovereignty was guaranteed by England and France. He thought he was safe, protected by his money and his business connections, so the only concession he made to the relentless assault of Nazi propaganda was to send his children abroad to weather the storm.”

Isaac’s observation of Baruj reveals the pervasive nature of hateful rhetoric, as well as the difficulty in measuring the danger of political discrimination. For many Polish and Jewish people, the Nazi Party seemed like a passing threat, leaving them unprepared, as Baruj was, for the “relentless assault” of military and political action that followed. However, Isaac’s analysis of Baruj as arrogant is likely incorrect, as he seems to underestimate the connection Baruj felt to his homeland, which would discourage many people from leaving their homes even in the face of severe threats.

“Alma had developed early, and her tendency toward solitude had made her very mature for her age. Whereas Nathaniel swam in what seemed like an insurmountable adolescence, the seriousness and strength that her father had instilled in Alma and that she saw as essential virtues only became more pronounced. She felt abandoned by her cousin and by life. She could imagine the intense self-loathing Nathaniel had experienced when he entered high school, because she felt something similar, if less acutely, but she did not allow herself the luxury of studying herself in the mirror to spot her defects, or of complaining about her fate.”

The divide between Alma and Nathaniel in this passage seems to be the consequence of over-introspection and under-introspection. While Nathaniel’s problems seem minor compared to Alma’s, his propensity to reflect on and ponder his circumstances leads him to a kind of depression. Alma, on the other hand, suffers in silence, denying herself the “luxury” of examining or working through her traumatic experiences. The result is similar for both characters, though, as they both feel alienated and isolated.

“‘There’s a difference between being old and being ancient. It doesn’t have to do with age, but physical and mental health,’ Cathy explained. ‘Those who are old can remain independent, but those who are ancient need help and supervision; there comes a moment when they’re like children again.’”

Though it may seem like Cathy is pointing to a transition within aging, she is highlighting the mindset component of aging, in which one’s self-perception plays a significant role in one’s ability to maintain independence. Those who are “old” could easily be more advanced in age than some of those who are “ancient.” Cathy considers herself largely dependent, despite being the youngest resident of Lark House, while Alma is much older and much more independent.

“She was so eloquent in her description of the most tragic episodes that Seth and Irina felt they were accompanying the Mendel family on its way to Treblinka; they traveled with them inside the boxcar amidst hundreds of other desperate hungry people, without air or light, vomiting, defecating, dying before their eyes; they went naked with them into the chamber of horrors, vanished with them in the chimney smoke. Alma also told them about Seth’s great-grandfather Isaac Belasco, and how although he died one month in the spring, that night there was an ice storm that completely destroyed his garden, and how he had two funerals, because there wasn’t enough room in the first for all the people who wanted to pay their respects: hundreds of whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, and others who felt indebted to him filed past his grave, so many that the rabbi had to repeat the ceremony.”

This passage provides a contrast between the horrors of the Holocaust and the warm reception of Isaac Belasco’s efforts to correct injustices. In recounting the Mendels’ story, Alma covers how the Nazi Party destroyed and tortured Polish and Jewish families like her own, but in telling Seth and Irina about Isaac’s two funerals, she balances the hopelessness of the Holocaust with the influence of a single, powerful individual to elevate and assist disadvantaged groups. Such a comparison seems to propose that individuals can make a difference, even in the face of large-scale political and military action.

“The Belasco’s garden remained deaf to the defamatory propaganda campaign against the Japanese, who were accused of unfair competition against American farmers and fishermen, threatening white women’s virtue with their insatiable lust, and corrupting American society by their Oriental, anti-Christian ways. Alma only found out about these slurs two years after she had arrived in San Francisco, when from one day to the next the Fukuda family became the ‘yellow peril.’ By that time she and Ichimei were inseparable friends.”

The way the “yellow peril” fails to take hold in the Belasco household reflects the concept of exposure, in which exposure to different groups of people reduces the effectiveness of stereotyping and misinformation. For Alma, her experience with the Fukuda family makes the anti-Japanese propaganda seem ridiculous. Farmers and fishermen who lack this exposure to Japanese families and workers, however, are vulnerable to being infected with racist ideology. Critically, the accusations against the Japanese follow the same pattern of racism and discrimination that has impacted many communities, including Black and Latino communities.

“They were forced to accept internment, otherwise they would be arrested and face the consequences of spying and treason in wartime. Joining hundreds of other families shuffling along in their best clothes, the women wearing hats, the men with neckties, the children in patent leather bootees, they went to the Civil Control Center. The families gave themselves up because there was no alternative and because by so doing they thought they were demonstrating their loyalty toward the United States and their repudiation of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This was their contribution to the war effort, the leaders of the Japanese community said, and very few voices were raised against them.”

This passage explains the contradictions presented to Japanese Americans during incarceration. On one hand, they are being interned on suspicion of treason based solely on their race, even though they are loyal Americans. The only way to assuage the fear of treason is to accept incarceration, which involves a fundamental understanding of being the Other or being distinctly not American. If they vocally disagree with the violation of their basic rights, then they increase the suspicion against them, even though standing up for their rights would seem like the most American option.

“From that day on he hovered around her discreetly, partly because he did not want to abuse his position of authority, but above all because any mixing of the races was forbidden for the whites and was repugnant to the Japanese. Thanks to her moonlike face and the delicacy with which she moved through the world, Megumi could have had any of the most sought-after young men at Topaz, but she felt the same forbidden attraction for the guard, and also struggled with the monstrosity of racism, praying to the heavens that the war would come to an end and her family return to San Francisco so that she could tear this sinful temptation from her soul. For his part, Boyd prayed the war would never end.”

The intersection of love and racism develops in Megumi and Boyd’s relationship before more detail is given on Alma and Ichi’s romance. For Megumi, she wants to remove the temptation and free her family, so she wants the war to end and her life to return to normal. The crux of Boyd’s privileged situation comes in his desire to continue the war because if Megumi is imprisoned, she will stay near him, even though it is detrimental to both her and her family. Boyd’s focus is on himself and his own interests, whereas Megumi is balancing her own desire against her more fundamental needs for safety and the safety of her family.

“Among the leading questions, they were asked to be loyal to the United States, fight wherever they were sent—in the army in the case of men, and in the auxiliary forces for women—and to renounce their allegiance to the emperor of Japan. For issei like Takao, this meant giving up their nationality without having the right to become American, but almost all of them complied. The only ones who refused to sign, because they were American and felt insulted, were a few young nisei. They were nicknamed the No-Nos, and were regarded as dangerous by the government and rejected by the Japanese community, who from time immemorial had detested scandal.”

In another instance of giving Japanese Americans no options to defend themselves, the questionnaire requires issei to renounce citizenship in Japan without the offer of American citizenship, while asking nisei to affirm the American citizenship they already possess. Unfortunately, a parallel impact of the questionnaire is the dual conflict of the No-Nos, who insist on their American identity, leading to rejection from both the Japanese and American communities. The fact that the questionnaire is compulsory means that each Japanese American had to comply or face even worse treatment. James’s deportation is ironic in that he was born in America and gets deported for asserting his American identity over his Japanese heritage.

“He did not know either that the Japanese were more hated than the Germans, and he had not seen the comics where they were portrayed as degenerate and ruthless. He accepted the jibes with his usual placidity, but the first time a bully laid a finger on him, he threw him through the air with a judo move he had learned from his father—the same one he had used years earlier to show Nathaniel what martial arts were capable of. He was sent to the principal’s room to be punished. ‘Well done, Ichimei,’ was her only comment. After that crucial feat, he was able to go through the four years of schooling without ever being attacked again.”

This passage highlights two factors impacting Ichi’s life: the prevalence and effectiveness of propaganda, and the value of allies in positions of authority. The comics Ichi refers to depict Japanese people as less than human, and propaganda is incredibly effective at swaying the opinions of common people, which then spreads racist ideologies among their children. However, when Ichi defends himself, Brody’s support stops the chain of abuse, allowing Ichi the freedom to defend himself and live without fear of further violence when faced with racism at school.

“She found herself sharing a room with a plump girl from Virginia, who whenever the occasion arose presented her proof from the Bible that the white race was superior. Blacks, Orientals, and redskins descended from monkeys; Adam and Eve were white; Jesus might have been American, although she wasn’t sure about that. While she didn’t approve of the way Hitler had behaved, she said, one had to admit he wasn’t wrong when it came to the Jews: they were a condemned race, because they had killed Jesus. Alma asked to be moved.”

Allende includes this passage to highlight how the development of American perspectives on WWII, antisemitism, and racism was not diametrically opposed to Nazism, even in the aftermath of WWII. The perspective expressed by Alma’s first roommate was not uncommon, both during and after the war, as white supremacist ideology, often paired with Christian nationalism, is a dominant ideological trend across American history. The absurdity of the assertion that “Jesus might have been American” is meant to undermine this perspective, revealing how it relies on misinformation to support hateful speech and behavior.

“I have had a few free hours to paint in. This time I am not going to re-create the Topaz landscape, as I have done so often in the past. I’m painting a path in the mountains of southern Japan, near a very ancient, isolated temple. You should come with me to Japan, I’d love to show you that temple.”

Ichi’s continued involvement with art reflects the lasting impact of the trauma he experienced in in the concentration camp. The fact that he has been recreating the landscape of Topaz for many years shows how the incarceration formed a critical aspect of his personal history, and the shift to Japanese landscapes shows a return to the values of his heritage. At the same time, shifting away from the repetition of the Topaz experience shows the process of recovering from his trauma, allowing him to branch out and redefine his own identity and experiences.

“Nathaniel was sure his opinion of Ichimei would be the same even if he weren’t Japanese; it was a question of character, not of race. Ichimei was lacking that quota of ambition and aggression all men need, and which he himself had developed through sheer willpower. He recalled very clearly his years of fear, the torment at school, and the superhuman effort he had made to study a profession that required an evil streak completely missing in him.”

Nathaniel’s blind spot as a wealthy, white man is exposed in his distaste for Ichimei, which carries gendered, classist, and racist motivations, all masked behind his own perception of victimhood. As Alma notes earlier in the novel, Nathaniel’s brooding over his inability to succeed in his social environment as a teenager is only traumatic in Nathaniel’s reflection, and his insistence that this trauma outweighs those of people like Alma and Ichimei, who have been victimized by violent, cultural forces, shows his self-centered nature. In truth, his opinion of Ichimei would likely be different if Ichimei were white, rich, and conformed to the traditional white American masculinity that Nathaniel aspires to, which is later revealed to be complicated by the fact that he is gay.

“Some of the images had an ethereal, translucent quality, where the female figure disappeared into the dream of the man behind the camera; others were more realistic, and Alma faced Nathaniel with the calm curiosity of a woman alone in front of a mirror, at ease with herself, not holding back in any way, with veins visible in her legs, her Caesarean scar, and a face showing all her fifty years. Irina would not have been able to express the disquiet they aroused in her, but she understood Alma’s reticence at being seen in public under her husband’s clinical gaze.”

The images of Alma are revealing in that they maintain her strength and femininity despite their exposing nature. Irina’s discomfort is later elaborated as the result of her childhood sexual abuse, which haunts her into her adulthood. For Alma, though, little is said about her feelings about the portraits, though she is reluctant to see them in person. It seems that Alma knows how Nathaniel sees her, and she feels uncomfortable facing herself through Nathaniel’s lens.

“He desired her, and had waited for her to take the lead along the narrow path of eroticism, but his patience had gone unrewarded; it was time to turn to direct action or to give up on her once and for all. There was something in Irina’s past that held her back; there could be no other explanation for her visceral fear of intimacy. He was often tempted to turn to his investigators but had decided such underhanded tactics were unworthy for Irina. He thought the mystery was bound to be cleared up at some point, and so he held back his questions, even though he was fed up with having to make so many allowances for her.”

Seth’s character, as seen in this passage, seems to be entitled to the point of aggression, insisting that Irina must love him, or else there is something wrong with her. Though he is correct in assuming that Irina’s path is a barrier to their romance, his perspective omits the possibility that Irina might not be attracted to him. Fortunately, his ethics overpower his compulsive desire to own Irina, and the question of this passage lies in Seth’s supposed “allowances,” which are simply the patience he employs when spending time with Irina.

“There was no way of recovering or destroying it; it would be there forever. At every moment, somewhere in the world somebody was violating her, somebody was masturbating over her suffering. For the rest of her life, wherever she was, somebody could recognize her. There was no way out. The horror would never end. The smell of alcohol and the taste of apple would always take her back to that little house; she would permanently be looking over her shoulder, escaping; she would always loathe being touched.”

Though Irina’s backstory is covered briefly in the text, it opens the discussion of lasting trauma and how people try to cope with trauma. As Agent Wilkins notes, images of child sexual abuse before the Internet were limited to tapes and photos which could be destroyed and never seen again. For Irina, images and videos of her are perpetually shared and stored on the Internet in a way that prevents her from achieving any sense of closure. Her primary trauma might be mitigated by therapy and support, but the fact that she could be re-violated again at any moment continually re-traumatizes her.

“She adored him but knew that the disadvantages of poverty drove out love, because faced with the choice between a life of economic hardship within a Japanese community she had nothing in common with, or of continuing to be protected in her own environment, her fear of the unknown won out; she was ashamed of her own weakness. Ichimei deserved unconditional love, he was a wonderful man, a sage, a saint, a pure soul, a delicate, considerate lover in whose arms she felt blessed.”

Alma’s elevation of Ichi to a superhuman lover from a fundamentally different culture neglects the fact that he is a human being, much like herself, and that he is nisei, or Japanese American by birth. Her fear of poverty assumes that she would lose the support of the Belasco family, likely resulting from disapproval over an interracial marriage. But this fear is conflated with her fear of Japanese culture as something foreign and inaccessible. The way Alma discusses Ichi as though he is supernaturally good despite her classist and racist reservations about making a life with him suggests that she idealizes him partly because she feels guilty for succumbing to her own internalized prejudices.

“Years later, when it had become the fashion to love someone from a different race or to have children without marrying, Alma admitted to herself that her greatest prejudice was that of social class, which she never managed to overcome. In spite of the nightmare trip to Tijuana, which destroyed the illusion of love and humiliated her to such an extent that she took refuge in a monumental pride, she never doubted her decision to keep the truth from Ichimei. To confess would have meant facing up to her own complete cowardice.”

Though Alma identifies social class as her main prejudice, she fails to understand the intersections of class, race, and immigration. It is unlikely that Ichi could have been born into the Fukuda family in California in the 1930s without facing poverty, racism, and difficulties with assimilation. By keeping the truth from Ichi, Alma is correct in that she is protecting herself more than Ichi, but she still has not yet confronted the reality of her fears, which are largely about how she would suffer socially by exposing her interracial relationship.

“For several days now, Irina had been coming early to give her breakfast, keep an eye on her in the shower, and help with her clothes, but neither of them mentioned it, as that would have been to admit Alma was starting no longer to be able to live on her own, and would have to move to the second level or return to Sea Cliff with her family. They both preferred to see this sudden weakness as a temporary setback. Seth had asked Irina to give up her job at Lark House and leave her room (which he called the mousetrap) to go and live with him permanently, but she kept one foot in Berkeley so as to avoid the snare of dependency, which she feared as much as the idea of moving to the second level at Lark House scared Alma.”

The conflation of two forms of dependence, one due to infirmity and the other through love, highlights how dependence at any age can be frightening. In each case, Alma and Irina need to place trust in someone else to handle specific elements that are critical to their lives. Part of the novel is understanding that elderly people are not simply stubborn or foolish, as they share with younger people a common desire to be self-reliant. In this sense, dependence can be seen as a form of progress, moving forward in one’s development to accept degrees of assistance from others.

“Passion is universal and eternal throughout the centuries, she said, but circumstances and customs are constantly changing; sixty years on, it was hard to understand the insurmountable obstacles they had to face back then. If she could be young again, knowing what she now knew about herself, she would do what she did all over again, because she would never have dared reject convention and commit herself fully to Ichimei; she had never been courageous and had basically abided by the norms. Her only act of rebellion had been when she was seventy-eight and had abandoned the house at Sea Cliff to come and live at Lark House.”

Allende’s stance in this passage is that love exists separately from the conditions of the time in which it develops, meaning that Alma and Ichimei’s love, though forbidden in the mid-20th century, exists parallel to the social norms that forbid it. As a result, the social and cultural elements of their lives change only with the norms that govern them, rather than their eternal passion and love influencing their social behavior. Much like Nathaniel, Alma and Ichimei must live separately, and Alma reflects that, if she could go back in time, she would not be able to subvert those norms by attempting to mix her social and love lives.

“Since lovemaking between them was so infrequent as to be almost nonexistent, Alma imagined her husband must have had other women because the idea that he lived a life of chastity was absurd; Nathaniel however had respected the agreement to be discreet and avoid humiliating her. For her part, Alma had allowed herself a few flings on her travels, where opportunities always arose. It was a matter of giving a signal, and generally finding it was accepted, and yet these moments of release not only gave her less pleasure than she hoped but left her confused.”

Alma’s flings are reminiscent of the truth behind Nathaniel’s life, as he, too, was having flings with various men in bathhouses until he met Lenny. For Alma, flings lack the genuine passion and love that her sexuality takes on with Ichimei, which mirrors how Nathaniel and Lenny’s lives change when they meet each other. A crucial element in the novel is the way some people appear to be destined for one another, and their love generates an interest and a pleasure beyond what can be achieved by any two random people.

“Alma had no need to explain anything to her husband, as they led independent lives, and she never asked Ichimei how he managed to keep Delphine in the dark when they lived and worked so closely together. She knew he loved his wife, that he was a good father and family man, that he held a special position within the Japanese community, where he was considered a master and was called on to give advice to anyone who went astray, to reconcile enemies and serve as a fair arbitrator in disputes.”

This passage reveals an element of Ichimei’s assimilation that is distinct from Nathaniel’s. Ichimei assimilates into Japanese American society by continuing the traditions and values of Japanese culture separate from the American system in which that community resides. The arbiter role that Ichimei takes on parallels that of someone like Nathaniel, a lawyer, and yet Ichi serves a unique and important role in his own community. Essentially, the “yellow peril” and subsequent racism and discrimination made it difficult to assimilate directly into American culture, so many nisei created a new Japanese American culture to combine the elements of their heritage and their environment.

“Nathaniel ended a search begun thirty-five years before, although outwardly nothing altered in his life: he continued to be the model of bourgeois male respectability, without a soul guessing what had happened, or noticing that his office hours and addiction to sports were drastically reduced. On his side, Lenny was transformed by his lover’s influence. For the first time in his turbulent life he paused, and dared substitute the contemplation of his newfound happiness for all the previous noise and insane activity. If he wasn’t with Nathaniel, he was thinking about him.”

Unlike Ichimei’s assimilation, which involves separation from mainstream American society, Nathaniel remains embedded within his upper-class life, simply masking his sexuality in traditionally masculine activities. When he begins dating Lenny, the only change is that he eliminates some of those activities that previously served as covert opportunities to meet other gay men. Lenny, on the other hand, does not seem to have put as much effort as Nathaniel into appearing “normal,” and his process of reflection adds a balance to his life. In each case, Nathaniel and Lenny assimilate to the normative expectations of masculinity and heterosexuality while embracing their sexual orientation in secret.