Advance Praise
“In Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s psychologically astute, highly original novel, cracks in a bowl are repaired with gold, and the resulting network of shimmering lines makes it lovelier than ever. The bowl figures in a fascinating, historically-based story: as Japan loses the second World War, captured Japanese diplomats are confined in a Pennsylvania hotel that is staffed by local young people. Years later, the head of a school in trouble, meets up by chance with the child she befriended in the last months of the war, and experiences again the beauty of what is broken.”
— Alice Mattison, author of When We Argued All Night
“With a sharp eye for detail and accuracy, Ellen Prentiss Campbell recreates a little-known true moment between the Allied victories in World War II—VE Day and VJ Day—when a small resort hotel in the gentle hills of Pennsylvania housed detained Japanese diplomats, and their families and staff, who had been working in Germany. The complexities of wartime loss and bitterness on the homefront—and of human compassion—come to fore when one young woman’s life is intensely entwined in this single summer’s experience, and when the memories cascade with poignant force decades later. This unusual story surprised and moved me, especially in its tender portrayals of father and daughter, and of difficult loyalties in friendship and love—loyalties that would, as Prentiss Campbell writes, come to make what we assume about ourselves and “our small world…disappear like morning mist burning off the river.”
—Eugenia Kim, author of The Calligrapher’s Daughter
“This is sharp, vivid, and gut-wrenching story-telling of the most powerful kind.”
—C.M. Mayo, author of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
THE BOWL
WITH GOLD SEAMS
A Novel
THE BOWL
WITH GOLD SEAMS
A Novel
Ellen Prentiss Campbell
Apprentice House
Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Copyright © 2015 by Ellen Prentiss Campbell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-099-8
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62720-100-1
Development by Laura Amortegui
Design by Luisa Beguiristain
Author Photo by Victoria Ruan
The image of the bowl, photo on cover, is that of 49.2122 Chinese bowl decorated with parallel comb marks, 10th century, damaged and repaired with gold lacquer in Japan, acquired by Henry Walters before 1931, located at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD. Photo taken by Luisa Beguiristain.
Image of the Bedford Springs Hotel, translucent photo on cover, provided by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Published by Apprentice House
Apprentice House
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)
www.ApprenticeHouse.com
To Harold, with me at the Springs and at the firefly rocks.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to many fine readers including Susan Scarf Merrell, Judy Karasik, Virginia Hartman, Jody Hobbs Hesler, Katey Schultz, and friends at The Bennington Writing Seminars, The Bethesda Writers Center, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Linguist Barbara Smith Vargo’s experienced eye and ear were invaluable. Gerrie Sturman of Goldfarb & Associates believed in this book. Vicki Blier, Beth Hess, my husband Harold, and my children Martha, Tim, and Rebecca Pskowski believed in me. I am grateful to the memory of my late parents, John and Nelle Campbell, who introduced my brother Don and me to the rugged beauty of the foothills of the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania, near my paternal grandfather’s birthplace. There are many stories and mysteries in that region; this book was inspired by the Bedford Springs Hotel, almost a ruin as I began to write; restored and re-opened before I finished.
Prologue
April 1985
Clear Spring Friends School is rich in everything money can’t buy. But sometimes, money doesn’t hurt. I needed the meeting with Dick Wilson to go well.
“He’s getting out of the car,” I said to Sally. “Wish I’d worn my suit.”
My secretary stood beside me at the window, looking down into the parking lot.
“You’re fine,” Sally said. “Just tuck in your shirt, Hazel.” I was in my white Mexican market blouse and slacks. “Check out his bald spot.”
Dick was bending over his silver Mercedes, leaning in the window. I could see his daughter, slumped in the passenger seat.
“She’s in the car,” I said. “So she’s better.”
“If she was sick,” Sally said.
“Let’s hope she’s not pregnant,” I said.
“No boyfriend.”
“So?”
Dick pounded on the roof of the car.
“Poor kid,” I said. “No wonder she’s the way she is.”
“Here he comes,” said Sally. “Do you want coffee?”
“I want a drink.”
“Hazel.” Sally looked at me, hard. She has one blue eye, and one green, wears her long gray hair loose, doesn’t use and doesn’t need make up. I call her the Quaker Angel.
The fire door at the bottom of the stairs groaned open. Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
I retreated into my office. Sally and I share a suite on the second floor. The building was the dorm originally, until we built the new one. Weekday boarding for kids like Louisa is our niche market. And revenue stream.
“Good morning, Dick,” I heard Sally say. “Coffee?” We go by first names here, Quaker custom. No one ever calls me Mrs. Shaw. Almost no one knows I was married briefly forty years ago, when I was just a bit older than my own high school seniors.
“No, thanks,” he said, marching into my office. He didn’t shake my hand, squeezed his lobbyist’s expense account girth into the chair.
“Dick,” I said, “We’ve been concerned about Louisa.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Again. The girl had generated trouble from her first week as a transfer last year when she accused her roommate of stealing her ring. Louisa went home for the weekend and returned wearing the ring—without apologizing to her roommate.
“I hope it’s nothing serious. She’s missed almost a week of classes, Dick. It’s Thursday.”
“I know what day it is,” he said. His pale eyes were chilly and smug. He was enjoying this. He’s like this with her, I thought.
“What is it? We want to be of help.”
“Then get rid of the teacher who attacked her.”
“What do you mean?” My stomach clenched.