Authors: Mariko Nagai
saying that the food
they serve him is too oily,
too
American
. I ask him
how he is, a stupid question,
I know, but he looks so small,
and so tired,
that’s the only thing
I can think to ask him.
Fine,
he whispers,
Everything is going to be fine,
they’ll figure out, soon, that this
is unconstitutional.
We are led away
only thirty minutes later,
our footsteps echoing in the hallway,
the door banging,
then locking behind us,
my father left alone
in prison like a caged bird.
Every time I walk down the hall
at school, kids hiss
Jap
Jap
. Every time I walk home
from school, I feel eyes as heavy
as handcuffs around my wrists and ankles.
Every time Mother and I go downtown
in our Ford to shop at Mr. Fukuyama’s
grocery store, every time Mother says
Konnichiwa
, I look away.
Every time I see the word
Jap
in newspapers,
I become hot. Every time Mother cooks
miso soup and rice for dinner, suddenly
I am not hungry. Every time I see
myself in the mirror, I see a slant-eyed
Jap, just like they say, my teeth protruding
like a rat’s. Every time I look away,
Jamie holds my hand.
Dear Father, I hope
everything is okay
and that you are
doing well.
From the letters
you sent us,
the parts we can read
that haven’t been
blacked out, it seems
that they are treating
you well. Here, at home,
Grandpa’s been
pulling us together,
saying now that you are
in Montana (or North
Dakota, or wherever
they took you), we have
to listen to him.
Don’t tell Nick I told
you this, but a week ago,
Grandpa found out Nick’s been
breaking the curfew,
and without saying a word,
as soon as Nick came home,
Grandpa raised his cane
and hit him hard, once,
twice, over the head.
Nick just stood there,
angry, with his fists raised,
but he didn’t say or do anything
as Grandpa kept hitting him
again and again with his cane.
Mom was crying, and shouting,
Oto-san, yamete, yamete
—Father, stop it, stop it –, and
I was frozen, right there.
I’ve never seen this
Grandpa, who was like a stranger, angry
and spiteful. But as soon
as Nick apologized (for what?),
Grandpa stopped.
Okami o okoraseruna
– Don’t anger the government –,
Grandpa said slowly.
But we didn’t do anything wrong,
Nick shouted.
We’re American, just like everyone else
.
Grandpa shook his head,
ware ware wa Nipponjin demo naishi,
Americajin demo nai
—we are neither
Japanese nor American. His words stung me,
stronger than bee stings, even stronger
than the news of Pearl Harbor.
I went up the dark stairs
holding Basho in my arms
and shut my door and shut my eyes.
Most of the time, we are
doing okay, but Seattle’s changed.
Chinese kids walk around with buttons
that say, “I am Chinese.”
Then there are all these signs:
We don’t serve Japs. Japs go home.
The entire country hates
Japan. And they hate us.
No one seems to like us
anymore, except for Jamie
and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore.
Nick doesn’t say
it, but he’s having a really
hard time, I can tell.
He comes home with bruises
and cuts, and when Mother asks
him what happened, he only says
that he fell. I know he’s lying,
I know he knows that I know,
but we don’t talk about it.
How other boys push him around,
doesn’t matter he was voted the Most Popular,
they call him Tojo, Jap, Rat, and he answers
each and every curse with a punch.
Mother tells me not to go out
by myself. It’s hard to walk
down the street, being different.
I hope the new glasses Mother sent
you are the kind you like.
I miss you very much. I hope they are
treating you well. Father, I hope
you can come home soon so we can
all be together. I miss you.
Your daughter, Masako
President Roosevelt
signed Executive
Order 9066 today. Nick says
that Germans and Italians
aren’t arrested like
Japanese men have been all over
the West Coast.
Mina,
he whispered in the back
yard,
they’ll put us
all in prisons.
I don’t want to believe him,
but I see Grandpa
and Mother worrying over our
frozen bank accounts
and curfews and blackouts
and the five-mile radius, and I know
we will probably be put in
prison just like they did Father.
Grandpa sits on his favorite chair right near the rose
garden. His face, from where I stand, is as big as
the roses all around him, roses of bright red, deep red,
blood red, all kinds of red only he knows the names
for.
Masako, chotto kinasai
, he calls me over as he hears
the gate opening. He does not turn around. He does
not look at me, but keeps looking ahead, at his roses,
at the sky, at everything but me. Basho stretches
on Grandpa’s lap, then jumps down, saunters over to me,
and says hello by twirling his tail around my legs.
Grandpa, without moving his mouth, says,
We have
been asked to leave. We need to pack up
everything: the house, the nursery. We can only take two
pieces of luggage per person. We need to leave soon. And
I’m sorry, we can’t take Basho.
I am not hearing him
right, I tell myself. Why do we need to move?
They say that they are doing this for our safety. They say
that we will be taken care of. They say that it’s for our own
good.
Ware ware no tame da
, Grandpa says quietly in Japanese.
He reaches over, then taking a pair of scissors,
snips off a bud.
Ware ware no tame da
, he repeats again. I know
that’s a lie. I know they are doing this to hurt us. But I do
not say anything at all.
Ware ware no tame da,
his words echo in my head.
It’s for our own good, he says. Or so they say.
We have one week
to get ready.
It’s only been one week
since Mother and Grandpa
went to the Japanese
American Citizens League
Office and registered us
to be evacuated
to a place called Camp
Puyallup somewhere
not far away.
We are to leave
on Thursday, April
30th. Not a single Japanese
is to stay in Seattle
after May 1.
Mother and Grandpa
told us we are not
selling the house
like other families,
but that we’ll board it up,
and that we’ll be back.
We have a week to say
good-bye, a week
to pack everything up.
It’s a week that
seems not long
enough,
but forever.
What I can take:
the Bible that Mother gave me for my 12th birthday
my journals
Jamie’s Christmas present
homework assignments for the rest of the semester
(in case I return to Garfield next September)
clothes for autumn (maybe for winter, too)
the things that the WRA has ordered us to take:
blankets and linen; a toothbrush, soap,
also knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups.
What I cannot take:
Basho
our house
Jamie
the choir
Grandpa’s rose garden
Seattle and its sea-smell
What my Grandfather packs:
a potted rose
Basho is old.
The mangy
orange kitten
with a broken tail
came to the front
steps on a rainy
day and no matter
how much Grandpa shooed
it away, the cat kept
mewing until
Grandpa got sick
of it and pulled him
from under the porch
by the scuff
of his neck
and stuffed him
into the bed
next to him.
Fleas got
Grandpa, but Basho got
Grandpa. Basho came
when I was five.
See that scar
on his cheek?
He got it fighting
Kuro from four
houses down; he won.
See how his left
ear is torn? He got
it fighting
crows that were in the roses.
Basho brings gifts;
don’t be surprised.
Birds. Squirrels. Baby
moles. Basho likes
to have his ears
pulled gently.
He’ll show you
his belly if you do
that. He doesn’t understand
English; he grew up
around us, listening to
Japanese. He doesn’t drink
milk. He grew up drinking
miso soup and eating bonito
flakes and rice.
He is a good cat.
Please take care
of him. He’ll love
you, like he loves us,
like we love
him, like I love you. Jamie.
Mother stands
in the middle
of the room,
our sofas
and table
and chairs
covered in
white sheets
looking like Halloween
ghosts.
She walks,
the sound of
her bare footsteps
across
the bare floor
empty, up
the bare steps
to my room,
where she puts me to sleep
on a blanket
on the floor.
It is cold;
I never knew
our house could
be so cold.
The nursery is dismantled,
each glass pane taken off
from the frame. All the windows
of our house are boarded up;
the car’s inside the garage.
Everything has been put into
boxes and crates and stored
in the garage or with the Gilmores.
My room is bare except
for the naked bed and an empty
dresser draped in white; it’s
my very own ghost.
Mr. Gilmore shakes his head
as Mother gives him the keys,
“I don’t know what the world
is coming to, but don’t worry,
we’ll take care of everything.
They’ll realize how silly all this
is, and you’ll be back here
before you know it.” Mother bows
deeply, her shoulders trembling
like a feather, and Mrs. Gilmore
puts her arm around Mother, she, too,
shaking. Mr. Gilmore opens
the door to his truck
where the back is filled
with our bags. Grandpa stands
in front of our house, feeling
the bark of the cherry blossom
tree he planted when I was
born, feeling it, stroking it,
gently, as he looks at the house,
at the space where the nursery
used to be, then he raises his hat,
tips it gently, saying goodbye
to everything, to the house, to the wintering
roses left behind that will probably die
without his care, and to the tree
that has begun to bud.
Chinatown,
where all the
Japanese stores
used to be, is
boarded up.
It’s a ghost town;
no one’s about so early
in the morning.
It’s a ghost town
now and maybe forever.
A sign:
Thank you for your patronage,
it was a pleasure to serve you
for the past twenty years.
Then it gets smaller and smaller
and finally disappears
as we drive
quickly
toward the junction
of Beacon Avenue
and Alaska Street
at the southern end
of Jackson Park.
We are all tagged like parcels,
our bags, our suitcases,
my mother, me, Nick, Grandpa.
Tagged with numbers, we have become
numbers, faceless, meaningless.
We were told to come to Jackson Park,
just two suitcases each,
no more names, no memories, no Basho,
only ourselves and what we can carry.
Here we are, waiting for the buses
to arrive, photographers flashing and clicking,
other Japanese like us, so many,
all quietly waiting, wordlessly smiling,
without resistance.
And we all shiver because it is cold,
because we do not know where we are
going, because we are leaving
home as the enemy.
I fell asleep against a hard and unyielding
Nick, rigid with his anger, as the bus trembled,
shook like an old woman, like the rocking of a crib,
and we all slept like children, lost, not