A Girl Like You (19 page)

“She won’t complain, but this place is killing her,” Satomi says, breaking into his thoughts.

“I can see you are not well, Mrs. Baker,” he says, listening through his stethoscope to the thick thud of Tamura’s chest as she responds to his direction to cough. “Perhaps a few days’ rest will help.”

“I have tried that, Dr. Harper. It only makes me more restless. I like to keep occupied. It is better to work, don’t you think?”

He prescribes a tonic to build her strength, knowing it might as well be sugar water. He has no medicine to cure what she has, no magic. He is overcome with a profound sadness.

“I’ve seen that stuff before,” Eriko says. “It’s nothing more than treacle laced with cheap alcohol. Hot tea would do more good.”

“I’ll take it back and ask for something better,” Satomi says, knowing that Dr. Harper will indulge her. He is a man with a conscience and likes to find answers to her challenges.

She longs for Tamura to be returned to her old self, wants her Angelina mother back. She has a picture in her head of Tamura sitting on their porch shelling peas, the glossy loop of her hair shining, her profile silhouetted in the soft light; she pictures her straining rice, stirring clothes in the copper boiler at the back of the house. There are no chores that can diminish Tamura’s dignity. Her every movement has a refinement about it.

At night just before sleep she summons up a picture of the old Tamura in her head, hoping to dream of her in better times, of Aaron, of the farm.

Sleep, though, is a hard thing to sustain in the camp. Something is always on the boil with one or another of Manzanar’s ten thousand inhabitants. Women give birth at all hours, and the ill and the old die, not always quietly, even though some of them welcome death. Crying babies and the moans of nightmares are the order of the confined nights. Worst of all for Satomi, though, are the noises that come from closer to home.

“I can’t bear it,” she whispers to Tamura through their silk partition, despairing at the embarrassing sounds of lovemaking that nightly beat through the half-inch division wall from Mr. and Mrs. Sano’s room. Their enthusiasm seems quite horrible, considering they share their quarters with their daughter-in-law and their two grandchildren. Their son is confined to a citizens’ isolation center in Catalina, for making too many complaints of a political nature.

“My son is a fine man,” Mrs. Sano says. “He takes after his father.”

Hardly a sound emanates from the Okihiros’ side, but the Sanos live their life regardless and have no consideration at all.

Mr. Sano at sixty-five is a bent man, his back stooped from years of picking strawberries for a living, his skin like buffalo hide, but he is surprisingly energetic when he wants to be.

“He looks like a wrinkled old turtle.” Satomi shudders. “More like eighty-five than sixty-five—ninety, even.”

“It gives them comfort,” Tamura says, mortified herself at Mr. Sano’s grunts, his wife’s high-pitched mews. “It’s worse for their daughter-in-law, poor girl. She has a lot to put up with.”

“But they are so old, Mother. It’s disgusting.”

“It is better not to whisper,” Tamura advises, coughing out her words. “Whispering only makes our neighbors more interested in our conversation. I wouldn’t like them to hear us talking about them.”

Satomi is surprised at the strength Tamura has found to cope with everything that has been thrown at her since she lost husband and home. Her mother has a knack for friendship. People may still be suspicious of her strange daughter, a girl who thinks herself equal to her superiors, but their hearts are open to Tamura. They like her honest approach, her modesty.

“ ‘Honor’ is the word for Tamura,” Eriko says. “There’s nothing false about her.”

“Your mother is the sweetest lady,” Ralph teases her. “Guess you must take after your father, huh?”

Tamura, the woman now that she would never have become if Aaron had lived, goes to work cheerfully and sings “God Bless America” every morning alongside the Stars and Stripes with her fellow workers in the breakfast line. When all they get is canned wieners and spinach cooked to slime, her complaints are merely for form. Yet there are times when she longs to hold one perfect just-laid egg in her hand, to touch it to her lips and feel its gentle warmth, times when she remembers the pleasure in being a wife, the joy of a good harvest. Recalling those things, it is a small embarrassment to her that she is happy at Manzanar.

“How can you sing, Mother? What is there to sing about here? And ‘God Bless America,’ of all songs!”

“You should try it yourself, Satomi. You can’t be unhappy while you are singing.”

However hard it is for Satomi to understand, the truth is that Tamura isn’t afraid of anything anymore. Even the idea of death, close as she suspects it is, has found its place and settled. She has found friendship and laughter at Manzanar, and in the companionship of the Okihiros she has been returned to the camaraderie of family, albeit not one of blood.

Her love of country, of America, is strong in her. She caught that germ from her parents long ago and will never be cured of it. Japan for her is simply a place in her imagination, a legendary land where the fables of her mother’s childhood are set. It is not to be confused with the Japan that drops bombs on America, the Japan that killed Aaron. She trusts in an American future.

“You have to let your anger go,” she tells Satomi. “The only person it is having an effect on is you.”

When Tamura gets food poisoning from a mess hall stew that had been reheated once too often, the residents of Sewer Alley are surprised to see Dr. Harper come calling twice daily until she is recovered.

“White men seem to like her,” they gossip without spite.

Few in the camp escape the infections that stalk the place. Dirty water brings dysentery, proximity spreads whooping cough and the pitiless episodes of measles that are rife among the children.

“It seems the orphanage is always quarantined,” Satomi observes to Dr. Harper.

“Yes, from fleas to flu,” he agrees. “There’s no end to it.”

“Poor little things, without mothers to comfort them.”

“I’ve noticed you talking to the children, Satomi. I’ve seen them run to you. They like you. You should help out there. Too many of your fellows speak of being an orphan as something shameful.”

“Some do, I know. The Japanese word for it is
burakamin
, it means untouchable. But it’s not a common view, Dr. Harper, we are not savages, you know?”

Apart from the diseases, people die of other natural causes too, of heart attacks and old age. Some, it’s said, of shame and broken hearts, and there have been suicides. One man was so distressed at being separated from his family that he attempted to bite off his tongue; when that didn’t work, he climbed the camp fence and was shot by a guard. Murder or suicide, it was hard to tell.

“Murder, of course,” Satomi said.

“Perhaps,” Haru dithered.

The hastily cleared ground of the once-tiny cemetery is constantly having its boundaries widened. The dead are quickly laid to rest, their families marking their graves with a simple ring of rocks. A small obelisk fashioned from stone has been placed in the heart of the graveyard as a monument to the dead.

“A consoling tower,” Naomi says.

Tamura weeps for the dead whether she knew them or not. “They died wondering what it has all been for,” she says. “They never found their way home.”

One afternoon in the camouflage shed, suffering from lack of breath and cutting pains in her chest, she is carted off to the hospital barrack, where, serving as a ward, three iron beds are arranged in the open air alongside the hospital’s latrines. There are two more beds inside and the part-time nurse tells Tamura to sit on one while she waits for Dr. Harper.

“It’s written on your notes that Dr. Harper wishes to deal with you himself,” she says, giving Tamura a suspicious look. “You’ll have to wait while we find him.”

Eriko, fearing for Tamura’s life, rushes to find Satomi, who is in the showers, where she goes at quiet times to wash her hair with the scented soap that Lawson gives her. When she can’t be found in
her usual hangouts it’s a fair bet that Satomi will be in the showers, lost in the sweet reward of floral foam.

“Your mother is stable,” Dr. Harper says. “She has a weak constitution, of course, and the food poisoning didn’t help, but …”

“How can she be stable? Look how she fights for breath.”

“Don’t pester Dr. Harper, Satomi.” Tamura pants, struggling for air. “He is doing his best. It is not his fault. There is nothing to be done.”

“Is that true, Dr. Harper? There is nothing to be done?”

“There are things you can do to help, Satomi. Keep your mother warm, see that she eats regularly. I would suggest that she gives up work on the camouflage nets, but I guess she’ll fight you on that one. The dust there is full of fibers. It’s a problem there’s no answer to.”

“Letting her go home would keep her from the dust, Dr. Harper.”

“If it was up to me, Satomi, then … of course …”

If he had the power to order it, he would free all of Manzanar’s inmates. He wishes with all his heart that he could save Tamura. It hurts him that he can’t cure her. The thought that, like his wife, she might be disappointed in him too, adds to his feelings of impotence. Without reason he has taken on himself the blame for him and his wife being childless, it is the least he can do for the wife he had long ago lost interest in.

“Isn’t there proper medicine for her cough, at least?”

“Well, nothing that will do much good. I’ll see that she gets an extra blanket, though, that should help.”

How can he tell Satomi what Tamura knows and has chosen not to tell her? The girl is bright enough to see others in the camp with the same condition. She just isn’t ready to see it in her mother.

The tuberculosis has advanced beyond medicine. Tamura is already coughing up blood, having to sit upright through the night
just to keep breathing. One foot in front of the other is the only way to go now. And Satomi looks scared enough already, no point in telling her there is worse to come.

“Have you thought about helping at the Children’s Village, Satomi?” he says, to distract her. “I have spoken to them about you. They can do with all the help they can get, you know.”

“If they’ll have me, I will. Mother wants me to, and I guess that I do too.”

“Good, it will suit you, I think.”

“Just the thought of you helping there makes me feel better.” Tamura smiles. “You are a good girl at heart.”

“And there’s other good news,” Dr. Harper says. “You’ll be pleased to hear that work starts on the new hospital this week. There will be more doctors coming to join us, Japanese ones among them. Things here are looking up.”

“We won’t be holding our breath,” Satomi says under hers, but loud enough to be heard.

“No, no, it’s for real. And there are to be more latrines too. We’re gonna get on top of these infections for sure. You can count on it.” He hopes that he is right. It seems to him that one way or another the whole camp is diseased.

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for new latrines, at least, Dr. Harper. Guess you’ve never had to wait in line for them yourself?”

“Well—” he manages before she interrupts him.

“We try not to notice the sour air, or see the sewage bubbling up through our feet. We put up with the paper always running out and the flies everywhere.”

“I’m sorry they are so bad. It will help when there are more, I’m sure.”

“You can’t imagine how humiliating it is for the women in those lines, or how vulgar the men can be.”

“No, I can’t say that …”

Tamura joins in to help him out. “They only joke to ease their embarrassment,” she says, frowning at Satomi.

“I will mention it to the superintendent in charge,” Dr. Harper says. “You are right, something must be done.”

Later, as Tamura sits chatting to Eriko, she protests Satomi’s behavior. “I felt sorry for Dr. Harper, Eriko. Honestly, Satomi gives him such a hard time. They seem to be friends, yet still I am shocked at her lack of respect.”

“She is too outspoken,” Eriko agrees. “But there is nothing to be done about it, she is already made. In any case, I think that Dr. Harper likes her enough to forgive her. Did he give you anything for your cough?”

“Yes, a blanket.” Tamura giggles. “What else can he do? Oh, and good news. He says that new latrines are to be built soon.”

“Really? My mother will be pleased, if that’s true. It’s the old who suffer most. Mother will only go at the quietest time of day, and even then it’s torture for her. It’s the same for all the old women. They have to go in pairs, one always on guard for the other.”

“Mmm, they were formed in Japan’s clay. They are modest. We have become used to it, but they never will.”

“Well, neither will I,” Satomi’s voice comes rudely through their dividing wall, against which she is propped with
Wuthering Heights
in hand. “I can’t bear those filthy latrines.”

“Oh, Satomi, it’s not the same thing at all. And I notice you have no such inhibitions when it comes to the showers.”

“It’s no wonder people take against you,” Eriko joins in crossly. “You never know when to be still, when to stay quiet. You are forever in the line for the showers, keeping people waiting.”

If there is one thing that makes Eriko irritable, it’s talking through the wall, it seems to her to be the height of bad manners.
But she instantly regrets her irritation, even though she is only speaking the truth.

Sometimes Satomi will finish one shower and straight off join the end of the line to take another. Her reputation suffers and people find relief in grumbling about her.

“Her manners are bad.”

“It’s to be expected, I suppose.”

“But Tamura is so kind, so polite.”

“She is a cuckoo in Tamura’s nest.”

“I hear she takes soap from the guards.”

Tamura is gently critical too. “You must learn to manage. I do not like you taking things from Lawson, it will make you unpopular.”

“Oh, Mama, I’ve never been popular here, now, have I?”