Summary
A miniature epic carved from the chintz and incense of a Chinatown curio shop, Mystic Faces tracks the odyssey of Yano—diminutive courier, cosmic debtor—whose universe pivots on two fulcrums: Tama’s cherry-blossom smile and the wet-nosed loyalty of a terrier named Bengi. When municipal dog-snatchers wrench the pup from the cobblestones, the tear in Yano’s world is mended by Letty Stanford, suffragette saboteur, a woman whose silk gloves conceal ciphers for the Allied war machine. The boy’s vow of fealty—inked in gratitude, sealed by ancestral honor—propels him through opium haze, laundry steam, and the ribcage of a city that treats Asian bodies as expendable extras. Months later, Letty vanishes: abducted by a Teutonic cell trafficking in secrets and women. Yano, armed only with paper-boy cunning and the weight of a promise, slips across docks, through brothels, into the bilge of a German freighter. In a finale lit by magnesium flares, the child-savior outwits men thrice his bulk, springing Letty from a cage of rust and Prussian spines. The ledger is balanced; the little Japanese has paid his debt, but the city remembers the echo of his footprints longer than the names of its kings.
Synopsis
Yano is a small delivery boy for his uncle, who keeps a curio shop in Chinatown. His loves are Tama, his sweetheart, and Bengi, his dog. Bengi is seized by dog catchers, but is rescued by Letty Stanford, for which Yano promises his fealty. Later Letty is kidnapped by Germans because of her war activities, and it is Yano who goes to her rescue and gets her free in spite of his diminutive size. The Little Japanese has paid his debt.
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