by Sarah Bird
I once asked Fuji-san to take her life for my mother’s. I thought her beauty and her charm had been given to be used as weapons against me. I look at her perfect face and wonder at the life I might have had if I’d been the outsider in my own family and I could only draw an easy breath with anyone except them. Next summer, I won’t finagle my way onto a Space A flight and come back to Okinawa or to anywhere else my family is stationed. I will stay in Albuquerque and find a job. A roommate. Some friends. Kit, the only one of us to have found a way out of our family, maybe Kit will show me how to stop being a prune just passing through the duodenum of life.
Standing on the deck, the wind blowing her dress out behind her, molding it to her in front, Moe looks like a pioneer mother searching a vast prairie for the one missing. As the sirens announcing a Typhoon Condition 1E beep out, Bob scales Moe’s body until he is safe in her arms. Kit and Bosco both move closer to her and from the awkward, stifled tropisms of the twins’ bodies it is clear they, too, with a typhoon wind whistling, are fighting the urge to cling to their mother.
I put the box of strawberries in front of my face to keep from crying and see myself again in my backyard perfume factory laboring in Fuji’s shadow. I inhale the berries’ fragrance and realize that what I was bottling, all those years ago, was memory. That honeysuckle was just one link in an endless limbic chain that contains all the smells of my family and of our life together: Baby Magic, support hose, Kool menthol cigarettes, sweat and Chanel No. 5, soggy diapers, talcum powder, Young Pinkoo lipstick, rice crackers, green tea, benjo ditches, tangerines and caramelized sugar, Brasso, Kiwi shoe wax, Right Guard, vodka, cigar smoke, kerosene and old books, canned beans and hot pickle relish, lacquered umbrellas and wet wool, DDT, old beer, floor wax and onion rings, black shoe edging, Herbal Essence shampoo, cut grass, Tide, warm cotton and steam, hamburgers and fermented ketchup, coral dust and diesel fumes, coconut hair conditioner, Brut, mildew, canvas, hay and manure, opium, JP-4 fuel, pickled plums, cherry-blossom tea, steamed rice, sweat, grease pencils, fear and Aqua-Velva, chlorine and Coppertone. Rain. Breath. And now, strawberries.
Each smell is a blossom that combines with all the other smells the same way real flowers would in a real perfume factory where the days of sunshine and growing, the days of storm and drought, the times of plenty, times of want, what the flowers got, what they didn’t get, they’re all squeezed together under preposterous pressure or boiled or tinctured or distilled into a few drops of a smell so beautiful it can make you remember everything.
In a minute or two, I will hand Moe the strawberries and tell her they are from Fumiko. I will tell her I’m sorry I told the secret and took away her best friend and messed things up with our father. She’ll tell me the same thing Fumiko did—that I was only a kid and it wasn’t my fault. That it all would have happened anyway. That there’s never just one thing, and neither one of us will ever mention it again. But for the rest of my life, the scent of strawberries will forever remind me of standing beside a runway on the island of Okinawa with my mother, my sisters, my brothers, our clothes filled like sails by a tropical wind, as we all watch the sky and wait for our father to return, one more time, ahead of the storm.
Perfume
Everyone in my family has one thing. Bob can recite, ka-blooey for ka-blooey, every line of every cartoon he’s ever watched. Abner can do his age times one hundred in sit-ups. Buzz can put both his ankles behind his head and walk on his palms. Bosco is never wrong about a fact. Kit can walk into any school anywhere in the world and become the most popular girl inside of a week. My one thing is dancing. A long time ago, our mother’s was singing and our father’s was flying.
Acknowledgments
More than any book I have written, I owe thanks.
Above all, to my family who shared their memories of our gypsy childhood and, most precious of all, understood and accepted my capricious weaving of fiction through our shared past.
To my boys, my angels, George and Gabriel.
To Kris Dahl for twenty years of friendship and representation without equal.
To Ann Close, whose impeccable editorial guidance verges on the clairvoyant.
To Dave Hamrick and Robert Draper, who both went out on limbs of varying lengths for this book.
To my first and dearest reader, Kathleen Orillion.
To the friends and writing companions who have given me such generous portions of heart and wisdom at critical junctures: Bert, Bill, Carol, Casey, Clare, David, Diane, Dick, Elizabeth, Emily, Ernest, Hickey, Jesse, Jim, Jo Carol, John, Judith, Larry, Marcie, Mary, Pat, Rebecca, Robert, Sara, Suzanne, Tim, and last, though he’s been there from the first, Tom.
To Glenn Greenwood, indispensable guide to all things brat.
To Pat Conroy for creating the definitive portrait of a military family in The Great Santini and to Mary Edwards Wertsch for, in her words, “taking the military family into therapy” in her landmark work, Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress.
And, finally, to the glorious convocation of brats I’ve met in our hometown in cyberspace.
THE YOKOTA OFFICERS CLUB
SARAH BIRD
A Reader’s Guide
A Conversation with Sarah Bird
Sarah Bird, in Austin, has a long phone chat with her mother, Colista Bird, and two sisters, Kay and Martha, who are all in Albuquerque curled around a speaker phone.
Sarah: You guys just had brunch on the patio? WAAAHHH!! I wish I could have been there. What did you have?
Martha: Breakfast burritos—
Kay: —and mimosas—
Martha: —and strawberries—
Mom: —and mimosas!
Laughter.
Sarah: So, you’re telling me you’re all baked.
Kay: Lightly toasted.
Laughter.
Sarah: Okay, well get it together; we’re supposed to be talking about this book inspired by our family.
Kay: Book? You wrote a book? You write? When did this start?
Mom: I thought you were demonstrating electric scissors at Sears. (A job Sarah had during Christmas break her junior year.)
Kay: Yeah, you should be about ready to retire now.
Martha: Okay, we should talk about the book.
Kay: That’s Martha. She’s The Nice One.
Reek-reek. Reek-reek.
Sarah: What’s that sound?
Martha: That’s Kay. She’s making the brown-nose sign at me.
Sarah: All right, questions. Or, actually, I hope this can be more of a conversation. Of course, we’ve talked a ton about the book. You all were reading and approving rough drafts while I was writing it, but I’d love to ask some questions and get “official” answers. So, first question: Mom, how on earth could you have let me go off for two weeks to Tokyo with a pinkie-ringed comedian?
Laughter.
Mom: That’s a good question. I musta been out of my mind.
Sarah: No, really.
Mom: Well, you remember, after you won this contest and announced you were going, we all went over to his house. He promised he was going to take his maid along as a chaperone.
Sarah: His “maid”? She was his girlfriend, concubine, something.
Mom: Well, he told us she was his maid, and he swore on his mother’s grave that there wouldn’t be any funny business of any kind. Then he said, “Why are you asking me all these questions? You’re acting like I’m some kind of white slaver.” And I said, “Well, I want to make sure you aren’t a white slaver.” (Laughs.) Sarah, it wasn’t a matter of me “letting” you go. It was a question of you coming home and telling us you were going.
Sarah: So much for the dictatorial military family.
Kay: Since I was seven at the time, I don’t remember much of this very clearly. Did Mom take you to a sew girl to have a costume made?
Mom: Oh no, the sew girls came to the house.
Sarah: That’s right. I had my characters go to her in the book so that we could have a littl
e tour through lovely downtown Koza.
Mom: Yes. We had these very short costumes made, and then you proceeded to whack off about another foot.
Martha: So they went from very short to very, very short.
Silence.
Sarah: I’m not not saying anything; I’m writing furiously.
Kay: Every word’s a gem.
Reek-reek. Reek-reek.
Kay: Now Martha’s calling me a brown-nose.
Sarah: Everyone always asks if I really had a sister like Kit. Does anyone ever assume that one of you was Kit? And, if so, I’m very sorry.
Martha: Well, I guess because chronologically it would have been me, people sometimes act like they have the inside story on my life. That I’m really Kit. Oh, what a joke that is!
Sarah: Yeah, we all know that Kay was really Kit. (Laughs.)
Kay: I was Kit? You were Kit!
Sarah: Right. Remember my program I instituted in high school? I made myself speak to one person every day who was not a member of my family? “May I borrow your pencil?” “Do you know what time it is?”
Martha: More important, who was Bosco?
Kay: And the answer is …
Martha & Kay: … YOU were Bosco!
Sarah: Maybe the obsessive, anxiety-ridden, noodgy parts of Bosco are me, but the sweetness—I really modeled that on my little sisters. You guys were such sweet little girls.
Reek-reek. Reek-reek.
Sarah: Who did that?! Who gave me the brown-nose noise? Okay, come on, questions.
Kay: Yeah, I have a question: Did the comedian guy really hit on you?
Sarah: Yes.
Martha, Kay, & Mom: Eeeee-YUGG!
Sarah: I know. And he really did tell me that he shot blanks.
Kay: And that’s what made the difference. Not just that he’s a big, fat, greasy, fifth-rate comedian. But he’s a big, fat, greasy fifth-rate comedian who—
Kay & Martha: —shoots blanks!!
Sarah: Yeah, how did I resist?
Kay: Hey, Sarah, guess who’s coming to Isleta Pueblo Casino?
Sarah: Uh … Captain and Tenille?
Kay: Close, Tom Jones!
Sarah: Tom Jones? Oh, now, that’s sad. Are you gonna go?
Kay: The only way I’d go is if you come with me.
Sarah: When’s he gonna be at the Pweb?
Kay: May.
Sarah: Gotta miss Tom. I’m not coming until June.
Martha: You know, Tom’s schedule seems pretty open these days. We’ll get him to stay over for you.
Kay: Yeah, he can move in with Mom. Bring in her breakfast tray. (Sings) What’s new, pussycat? Woo-oo-woo-oo-woo-woo.
Martha: Tom, please, close your robe.
Sarah: Yeah, Mom’ll be zinging her undies at him.
Kay: Right, suds these out, Tom.
Sarah: How many mimosas did you all have?
Mom: Counting the ones we’re drinking right now?
Laughter.
Sarah: The book, this book I wrote …
Kay: Mom, since I wasn’t even born when we were in Japan, it was interesting for me to read that you had this whole life where Dad would come home and you couldn’t say, “Hi, dear, how was your day?” He couldn’t talk about his work and, I assume, you knew it was dangerous. What was that like?
Mom: Kinda scary.
Kay: When he’d leave on a mission, would you even know when he was coming back?
Mom: Newp.
Sarah: How much did you know?
Mom: I knew they’d turned in a couple of May Days. Been a few missions when no one thought they were gonna make it home. That other crews in the squadron hadn’t made it home.
Sarah: Did Dad talk about that?
Mom: No, not directly. He couldn’t. But he’d be shook up, drink a little more than usual, and really get into the family thing in a big way. But the scariest part of it was when there were casualties. I’m telling you, the way they made those families disappear …
Sarah: The families of the men who—
Mom: —didn’t come home. Boy, they were gone overnight.
Sarah: I remember that. How the little girl who’d been sitting next to you the day before, coloring in the route Vasco da Gama took to the New World, was just gone with no explanation. One of the hardest things to convey in the book was how it never occurred to you to even ask what happened.
Kay: Back to the Go-Go Years, how did it feel going back after that experience?
Sarah: You mean back to UNM?
Kay: Yes, were you missing the little people?
Sarah: (Laughs) Right. That whole experience was so removed from my real life. The only way I could do it was knowing for absolute certain that no one I knew would ever see me. I never mentioned it much once it was over. Especially not after I became a fiction writer. “I was a go-go dancer in Tokyo.” Sounds so completely made up. What about you guys? What was it like for you coming back from Okinawa?
Mom: Like being let out of suspended animation after almost three years.
Kay: All I wanted to do was eat American food: Sweet Tarts, Burger Chef—
Martha: Remember that neighbor of ours who brought us back a loaf of Wonder bread? It was supposed to be such a giant treat. Reeked of jet fuel. And the chocolate? All the chocolate from “the World” was all melted and looked like it had sat on a runway in Guam for a few days, melting in the sun.
Kay: Didn’t stop us though, did it?
Sarah: What has been the reaction of your friends and people you know to the book?
Kay: You’re forgetting, Sarah, we don’t know people. We’re still insulated, living in our own little world. Seriously, it’s been favorable but a little cautious. People aren’t sure what’s true.
Sarah: Okay, forget other people. What was it like for you to read the book?
Kay: It was really moving. Much more so than I thought it would be, especially the pieces of Mom that you captured and brought back.
Martha: I liked how it re-created the feel of the family. I know it wasn’t a history of our family, but it all seemed so familiar. I sure knew where the original threads came from, and that made me like it all the more.
Kay: It was also reassuring to me.
Sarah: How?
Kay: Just that my sense of not belonging had a reason, and that lots and lots of other people felt the same way.
Mom: Of course, I always tried to figure out what was reality and what was just a figment of your imagination. It brought back a lot of memories. Like it was happening all over again.
Sarah: Anything in particular?
Mom: I tried to remember if I disliked the wives that much or if they disliked me that much. I do remember feeling like I was sort of an outcast.
Kay: So that part was true?
Mom: Well, I certainly was an outcast when I took that job as school nurse at Kadena Elementary on Okinawa. I definitely was made to feel that I’d deserted the ranks. The president of the Wives Club would call and ask if I could “pour” between the hours of two and four, when some general’s wife was going to be in town.
Kay: “Pour”?
Martha: At a tea.
Kay: Oh, so mostly you’d just try and remember which cup your shot of bourbon was in.
Mom: You needed one at those affairs. I’d tell them I worked between the hours of two and four, and there would be a very long silence. Working? An officer’s wife? Horrors!
Kay: What did you think about Moe?
Mom: Well, she’s got to be one of the worst housekeepers in history.
Kay: Funny you should pick up on that. I don’t recall housekeeping being a big thing for you. Did you like Moe?
Mom: Oh yeah.
Martha: Sarah, are you ever asked, given that so much of the book is true, why you didn’t just write a memoir?
Sarah: Yeah, and I tell them to mind their own freaking business. Actually, I never really wanted to write a memoir for a couple of reasons. The first is that, as anyone who’s ever had a sister
or brother will tell you, at some point after you’re grown, you start exchanging memories and you wonder, “Did we grow up in the same family? Did we eat the same bowls of cereal and watch the same cartoons?” So I didn’t want to write The Official History of Our Family for that reason. But also I wanted to go beyond the puny details of my own puny life and try to tell a bigger story.
Martha: Which you did with Fumiko. I know I’ve told you this before, but that was my favorite part. I couldn’t put the book down.
Sarah: Any reason why?
Kay: Yeah, it was just good writing.
Martha: Sarah, I have a comment: I think you made it real clear in the book that moving so much, always being uprooted, always being the “new kid,” made the family incredibly tight.
Mom: It was good that during all these troop movements, we took our own troop with us!
Kay: Mom, you’ve always emphasized us sticking together, being friends. Was that because of who you were or because we moved so much?
Mom: Probably a bit of both. It’s always been important to me that you guys were friends. A lot of times you had to be friends ’cause there wasn’t gonna be anybody else!
Martha: And also no one else outside our family “got” us. I clearly remember learning that I couldn’t tell the same joke outside the family that was funny inside the family. People would just think you’re weird.
Kay: That hasn’t changed much.
Martha: Have you learned anything about our family from writing the book?
Kay: Has your view of the family changed?
Sarah: Well put. Very good question.
Kay: I used to be a reporter.
Sarah: And it shows. For me the great gift of this book was learning about Dad, about his reconnaissance work. So much of it I’d always taken for granted. Like the Distinguished Flying Cross—I remember when he got that. But since all those missions were classified, it was never specified what he got it for, so I just assumed it was something all the dads got. For perfect attendance or something. It wasn’t until I did the research for this book that I found out a DFC is just one step below a Medal of Honor, and that it is incredibly rare to receive one in peacetime and even more unusual for the flyer to be alive to receive it.