We Are Not Free

by Traci Chee

  It’s only Yuki who keeps some of us together. She wants to improve her batting average for next season, so she ropes me and Mary into practicing with her.

  As much as I love softball, though, I can’t really get excited about it. I’m going to be in tenth grade, which means I’ll be old enough to play with them on the new high school team . . . if the government hasn’t sent us No-Nos to another camp by then.

  Plus, Dad still has my bat.

  The adults and boys usually take up the baseball diamonds on Blocks 15 and 21, and they never let us play, so we have to use the recreation area between Block 36 and the fence.

  “That’s where Mr. Uyeda got shot,” Mary points out.

  “I know.” Yuki bites her lip. “But where else can we go?”

  * * *

  By July, though, we’re tired of drills. We want to play a real game.

  And I want the group back together.

  It takes some wheedling, but I convince everybody to meet on the Block 15 baseball diamond. With nine of the Japantown kids left in Topaz, we’ve got a team, and Yuki’s bossy enough to make the boys who are already there agree to play us.

  I mean, it’s not like we’ll win. Bette’s chatting with a couple boys in the outfield. Tommy’s dropped every ball that’s come his way. Minnow couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. At third base, Shig’s not even that great, even though he makes up for it in trash talk.

  It’s lucky we’ve got Yuki behind home plate in the catching gear we borrowed from the rec center. And Mary, who’s playing shortstop like usual, fields everything between second and third.

  Keiko’s the biggest surprise, playing first base. She just has to stretch out her glove, and the ball goes straight into it, like it’s effortless. She doesn’t even have to look.

  But me, Yuki, Mary, and Keiko aren’t enough to carry the team. By the fifth inning, we’re down seven to two. At third, Shig’s smacking his mitt and chattering, “Hey, batter-batter-batter, swing, batter-batter—”

  He stops abruptly at a commotion behind him in the barracks. Someone’s shrieking.

  It’s a man, I realize, as a figure comes scrabbling out from behind the recreation building. He’s off-balance, clawing at the dust.

  Seconds later, two guys come running after him. They’re kicking him into the dirt. This far off, I can’t hear him grunt, but his body makes a sharp angle like the wind’s gone out of him.

  I’m thinking a million things at once.

  Is he a No-No?

  Are they?

  Does it matter?

  What would Mas do?

  I take off before anyone can stop me. I race past Mary, who’s watching me, dumbfounded, the ball still clasped in her throwing hand.

  “Ike, wait!” Shig cries.

  I ignore him.

  The attackers don’t notice me coming up behind them, which I guess gives me the advantage of surprise, but what am I going to do? They’re grown men, and I’m just a girl.

  But before I reach them, the ball comes whizzing past me. Thwock! It strikes one of the attackers’ shoulders, making him crumple.

  I glance behind me. Mary’s thrown down her glove, and she’s running for them now, her face set like she’s going to bowl them both over if they get in her way.

  Everyone else is with her too. Shig’s closest, but Keiko and Stan aren’t far behind, and even Bette’s running in from right field, her black hair flying out behind her.

  Then I’m there in the attackers’ faces, my lips peeled back from my teeth in a snarl as mean as Frankie’s, yelling at them to back off.

  It’s a good thing Twitchy taught me how to punch. Maybe I can hit one of them hard enough to knock him out of the fight.

  The men hesitate. Maybe they’re wondering if they can beat up a girl.

  But I’m not just a girl anymore.

  I’m all of us. Shig and Mary are right there beside me. And Stan and Keiko and Tommy and Minnow and Bette and Yuki, who’s got a bat!

  She’s screaming, “Leave him alone!” Bette’s trying to calm her down, but she just raises the bat like she’ll crack them good if they try to cross her.

  I thought I’d get a kick out of seeing us together ready to brawl, but I don’t. I mean, we’re just kids. We should be playing the game. Why can’t they just let us play the game?

  The attackers turn and run. We watch their retreating forms turn the corner of the rec center.

  Tommy and Minnow help the guy on the ground to his feet. There’s blood coming from his nose, speckling his shirt.

  “That was pretty stupid, Ike,” Shig says, but he’s grinning. “Frankie would be proud.”

  Stan rolls his eyes. “ ’Cause we should all be worried about what Frankie Fujita thinks.”

  His remark doesn’t bother me, though, because we do care what Frankie would think, just like we care what Twitchy or Mas or any of us thinks.

  I smile, but it doesn’t feel like a real smile, because the game is over. Shig and Stan help the beat-up guy to the hospital. Everyone else just kind of drifts off until only Yuki and I are left.

  “You okay, Ike?” she asks.

  Not looking at her, I grind the tip of the bat into the dust. “We lost.”

  * * *

  The next day, we get the news. We know for sure. Segregation’s going to start in September, and all the No-Nos are going to be shipped off to Tule Lake in California.

  * * *

  All through August, we pack. Our dad and Tommy take lumber from the scrap piles and refashion it into crates. Our mom goes through the barrack, tagging items for Tule Lake, for friends we want to leave them to, for the trash.

  It reminds me of the days before we left San Francisco, only this time, we have less. We don’t have Tommy’s phonograph or his record collection. We don’t have a decade of comic books. We don’t have Fumi and Frannie’s kokeshi dolls or our mom’s shamisen she brought from Japan.

  But it still hurts. It’s like we’re pulling up our roots, coming out of the dry soil, all our fragile threads breaking.

  Snap! There goes the softball team I could’ve belonged to.

  Pop! That’s Tommy’s hopes of getting into college.

  Worst of all, the next time we’re all together in the dining hall, Bette announces that she’s going to apply for resettlement.

  “I just have to fill out a form,” Bette says with a shrug that looks like she practiced it in the mirror. “Since the WRA’s set up field offices all over the country, I don’t have to have a sponsor or a job or anything. I don’t even have to wait for a background check like they used to.”

  Like they used to before the loyalty questionnaire, she means.

  I clench my fists.

  She can do this because she said “Yes” and “Yes.”

  “Just one form,” she repeats gaily, “a photo ID, and, Bob’s your uncle, I’m a free woman!”

  “How could you?” I shout.

  Bette blinks. “Aiko, I don’t—”

  “You could have waited!” I explode out of my seat, towering over her, fists shaking. I don’t know when I’ve been this mad. “You could have waited for us to leave before you broke us up!”

  “Aiko,” Shig says in that easy, reasonable voice of his, “c’mon, you know she didn’t—”

  I shrug him off angrily. “But you just couldn’t wait for us to be gone, could you? You just had to get out of here sooner than that!” She’s staring at me. There are tears in her eyes, but I don’t care. “Well, we don’t need you!”

  I storm out.

  The wind swirls around me, blowing me back a few steps before I charge forward again.

  I don’t know where I’m going. I just want to go somewhere.

  No, a little voice inside me says. I want to stay. I want everyone to stay.

  I don’t make it very far when someone catches up to me. It’s Keiko. I can tell from how she kind of sways when she walks, but not in an annoying way like Bette. I let her walk with me.

&nbs
p; The sun sets. Overhead, the sky is a blaze of reds and oranges, like the world is burning down around us.

  “Everyone’s leaving,” I say.

  I’m not looking at her, but I think she shrugs. “Everyone always does.”

  I remember belatedly that her mom and dad are still gone. And Twitchy. For a second, I feel guilty and stupid, but then I’m angry again, and I stop in the middle of the street. “But it’s not fair,” I say.

  One of her eyebrows goes up, and she flicks her fingers like she’s brushing away a bit of lint. “Life’s not fair, Ike. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  My face twists again in the way that Mom hates, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to cry in front of Keiko.

  I just . . . want things to be fair, and they’re not, and I can’t stop them.

  I couldn’t stop Japan from attacking Hawaii. I couldn’t stop the U.S. from locking us up and pitting us against each other. I couldn’t stop Mas and Frankie and Twitchy from leaving.

  Or Bette.

  Or anybody.

  I want to believe that if I were bigger, or older, or stronger, or a boy, or a superhero from one of my comic books, I’d have been able to do something. Stop something. Punch a bad guy. Storm into the White House. Shield Mr. Uyeda. Stand up to my dad. Snap the fences. Something.

  But I don’t think that’s true either. I want to believe in superheroes, but I think some things are just too big for one person, even a super one.

  And that’s not fair. That’s not fair. That’s not fair.

  Keiko keeps walking, and I trail after her, hiccupping, trying not to let the tears fall, trying not to let her see that I’m not as tough as her.

  Because Keiko is really tough. Not in the way that Frankie’s tough. Not in the way that Mary or Bette is tough.

  She’s kind of weathered, if you know what I mean. She’s like one of those bonsai trees Mr. Hidekawa used to collect from the Sierras, all curved and windblown and beaten down by snow, but graceful and strong. Life’s not fair, but she doesn’t need it to be fair, because she can take anything life throws at her, and she won’t break.

  * * *

  A little over three weeks after Bette submits her resettlement paperwork, she gets her indefinite leave clearance.

  Indefinite leave. That means she doesn’t have to come back. Ever.

  She says goodbye to us at the Main Gate. “I’ll write,” she says, tweaking my chin gently.

  Then, without a party or anything to mark the departure of yet another of us, she hops on a bus to Delta, where she’ll board a train to New York.

  I hope she’s happy there in the big city, under the bright lights.

  * * *

  The night before we leave, I can’t sleep. Even when I close my eyes, all I see is the barren apartment. The empty shelves. The hungry closet. For hours, I flop and turn, curling and uncurling, my cot creaking under me.

  I don’t know what time it is when my dad gets up, but the light through the windows, which no longer have curtains, is blue and cold as he walks across the floor. He’s standing in the doorway, and all I can see is the back of him. Tight shoulders. And my baseball bat in his hand.

  I sit up. I don’t know where he’s going. There hasn’t been an attack in days. There’s no one to retaliate against. No one to hurt.

  But maybe he’s like me.

  Maybe he wants to do something. Break something. Make a statement. Say, This isn’t right. Say, I’m not okay. Say, Goddamn you for all of this.

  “Dad,” I say.

  He freezes, one hand on the doorknob. “Go back to sleep, Aiko.”

  I stand, ignoring him. The Masonite is cold and smooth under my bare soles. “Give me the bat,” I say.

  He almost turns. I almost see his face. “What?”

  I advance on him, padding slowly across the blue-tinged floor. “It’s mine. It’s for baseball. It’s for games. It’s not for . . . for whatever you’re planning.” I extend my hand, fingers trembling. “Give it to me.”

  I don’t say “please.” I don’t need to.

  He owes me this.

  Or, well, someone owes me something, and if it can’t be any of the other things that would bring us back together in this stupid world, then it might as well be my baseball bat.

  He doesn’t hand it over, though—he drops it, and it lands on the floor with a clatter, bouncing a little from knob to end cap.

  Frannie and Fumi start crying.

  Our dad walks out the door.

  As Mom and Tommy get up to comfort the twins, I collect my bat and crawl back into bed, leaning the bat against the side of the cot, where I grip it tight.

  Slowly, the barrack quiets down again, and everyone drifts back to sleep.

  Except for me. I stay awake for a long time, clutching that baseball bat. Under my fingers, the wood has been worn smooth from all the times we played pickup games or Three Flies Up, from all those hands that have touched it, and I wonder if they’ve left their mark somehow, soaked into the grain like sweat or blood or love—Mas’s hands, Frankie’s hands, Twitchy’s, Bette’s, Yuki’s, Yum-yum’s, Keiko’s, Shig’s and Minnow’s and Stan’s and Mary’s hands.

  And my hands.

  And Tommy’s hands.

  I fall asleep like that, one hand closed around my bat, and I’m still holding on when I wake.

  VIII

  WITH A CHERRY ON TOP

  YUKI, 16

  OCTOBER 1943

  I’m waiting at the Main Gate with the other girls as the bus drives in. I’m so excited, I can’t stop smiling, even when my cheeks start to hurt.

  It’s our first away game since we arrived in Topaz, and I am ready. Last year, things were too disorganized, everyone was still too scared of us, and no one cared enough about girls’ sports to give us a proper team. But this year, we’ve taken our destiny into our own hands. Not only have we organized a girls’ high school softball team, but we’re also playing in a real league like anybody else.

  What a wonder, I think, to be like anybody else! Overhead, the nearby watchtower is empty. In fact, since the No-Nos left camp, every one of the watchtowers is empty. The gates are left unlocked all day and night, with only one guard on duty at the Main Gate after sunset. Best of all, we can come and go as we please. I squeeze through the strands of barbed wire on my daily conditioning runs. Last weekend, Mother and Father even took Bachan and me on a family picnic in the desert. Bette would have hated it—Sitting on the ground! All those bugs!—but Bette’s in New York now, and it just felt so normal. Like, after all the restrictions and the evacuation and the questionnaire and everything, we were finally regular Americans again.

  Now we get to play Delta High, the closest school to ours, and show them that we’re just as good at the old American pastime too.

  Since they’re basically our neighbors, the Delta Rabbits are our de facto rivals, but the Topaz teams love playing any Caucasians. We like beating them. We like hearing about other teams beating them in the news briefs from the other WRA camps. It’s like we’ve got something to prove, since we’re shorter and smaller and under-equipped and all that.

  Not that I hate Caucasians or anything. I don’t hate anyone. Like, our coach, Miss Jenkins, is great. She’s one of the elementary school teachers who lives in the staff housing on the south side of camp. She has mousy-brown hair and porcelain skin Bette used to complain about all the time. How does she do it? Does she have no pores? Miss J. is also probably one of the nicest people ever, although she’s probably too nice, if you know what I mean. She’s lucky she’s a good coach, or no one would ever listen to her.

  We clamber onto the bus, laughing and gabbing, and our bus driver, Mr. Gregson, nods at each of us as we board. “Afternoon, young ladies.”

  “Hiya, Mr. G.” I flash him a grin and slump into the second seat, behind Miss J.

  “Feeling good about the game today?” he asks.

  I like Mr. Gregson, too. He lives in Delta, but he does a lot of the driv
ing and work on the buses for the camp, so he’s here all the time. If you aren’t paying attention, he looks like he’s always cross, because there are all these lines on his forehead, and his mouth is always turned down at the corners like an upside-down melon rind, but his blue eyes are always twinkling with humor. I know he’s got kids at Delta Junior High, but I like to think he’s secretly rooting for us.

  I nod as he starts the engine. “You bet!”

  We rumble through the Main Gate, onto the dirt road that leads to Delta, and the girls let out a cheer. Across from me, Aki “Mori” Morikawa, our star chucker, pops her gum and winks at me.

  I laugh. I like a lot of things about softball, but my favorite is that zing in the air before a game, like the other girls and I are electric, and sparks are flying from our feet and fingertips, and no matter what else is going on in school or camp or whatever, I’m sure, at that moment, that we just can’t lose.

  Most of the team is fixing their hair for the game, because we can’t show up looking like a bunch of slobs, but every so often, someone starts up a cheer to teach the new girls, the ones who have only just gotten to senior high school or the ones we had to get to replace our No-Nos, like Mary Katsumoto.

  “Hey, Rams!” Jane “Abunai” Inai calls, half standing in her seat. “What’s that sound in the air, I wonder?”

  The rest of us start chanting, “It’s the Rams, ’cause we hit like thunder!”

  “What’s that flash in the sky so frightening?”

  We’re stomping on the floor now, our cries echoing off the metal ceiling, and good old Mr. Gregson is just tapping his hand on the steering wheel. “It’s the Rams, ’cause we run like lightning!”

  “Boom! Rabbits, you’re gonna get beat!”

  “Aki Morikawa’s bringing the heat!”

  Then it starts all over again for a different girl, until we’ve gone through the whole lineup, and we all go back to talking and fixing our hair as we pass the chicken and hog farms that line the road to Delta.