Forgiveness

by Mark Sakamoto

  That very night, Mitsue was staying up a little later to read when Wari sat straight up from a dead sleep. Mitsue turned up the kerosene lamp. Wari sat as straight as a board. She didn’t move her head, she looked straight ahead. Her eyes were wide open. After a moment, she slumped back down without saying a word; she was gone. She was only forty-nine years old, but her body could not take the conditions. Her heart had given out.

  Mitsue woke everyone up and they all said goodbye to Wari in the cold of the night. They buried her the next day in a small graveyard just down the road from the shack. The wooden headstone was the only one with Japanese writing on it.

  They went back to work that afternoon. They were to weed that day. Mitsue cried as she picked at the earth. Hanpei spent much of the day leaning on his hoe, shivering and shaking. June went to get water more often than usual, to cry in private. But Hideo worked all afternoon. He worked harder that day than Mitsue had ever seen him work before. The harder he worked, the less likely it was that Wari’s fate would befall anyone else in his family.

  If Wari’s death was an ending, the shack saw a beginning too. Mitsue was pregnant. She was surprised that she felt thrilled. Despite all the hardship there was one constant: family was the most important thing. Because of the hardship, family was the most important thing.

  Mitsue wasn’t a branch anymore. She was becoming part of the trunk. She had to be steady and sturdy. It was her time to support the branches. It would be tough. They didn’t even have running water. There were still holes in the walls. Bugs could fly right in. The shack was no place to raise a baby. But she had to live her life. The tree had to grow. In spite of it all, everyone had to grow.

  Mitsue spent the next three months hoeing and throwing up. Life couldn’t stop because she was pregnant. The family needed the money she made, so every day, even on the worst days, she was out in the hot, dusty field, thirsty and sick to her stomach. Those were the hardest days of Mitsue’s life. Despite it all, she was excited to know she would soon have a baby of her own. She knew that despite everything that was happening around her, she could be a good mother.

  Mitsue knew she needed some light in her life. Just like teaching Bible stories to the children of Celtic had helped her through Toru’s death, she decided, showing a baby love and warmth would bring those things into her own life. The shack was always so quiet. Everyone was bone-tired, morning and night. They spoke in orders. Do this. Take that over there. It felt more like a work camp than a family. Mitsue thought a baby might change that. Maybe being close to new life would remind them all just what life was supposed to be. Mostly she hoped having a baby would make their condition more bearable. But for the next few months, it just made her existence even harder.

  (From left) Hanpei, June, Mitsue, and Wari Sakamoto working in the sugar beet fields, Coaldale, Alberta

  Fall was coming and that meant they had to start to harvest. They had to pull each beet out of the ground by hand, shake all of the earth off, cut off the top and the roots at the bottom, and put it in a pile. The piles of beets would get to be six feet high.

  It seemed the rows of sugar beets would never end. They had to hurry. They only had so much time to get those vegetables out of the ground before the frost came. If the beets weren’t picked, they wouldn’t get paid. If they weren’t paid, they’d starve.

  They got the beets out just in time. Winter came fast and hard. The heat and the mosquitoes had been terrible, but they were nothing compared to the cold. They had not known cold like that. It hardly snowed on the coast. Here, the first flurry was light, like big pieces of salt coming down. But by the next morning, the ground was covered. The table was wet because snow had fallen through the cracks in the roof. They knew that they couldn’t keep living in the shack for much longer or they’d freeze to death.

  Mr. Rutt brought in a carpenter to patch up all the holes and insulate where he could. This was better, but still pretty rough. The nails in the wood would frost over every morning. Ice filled the cracks in the walls. During those winter nights, they would all sleep with one eye open. If the fire in the stove went out, they’d be in big trouble. When it is minus 35 degrees outside, you don’t have much time once the fire goes out.

  Hideo went up to the farmhouse to speak to Mr. Rutt about the conditions. He had never complained, not about the bedbugs, not about the dirty grey water, not even about the holes in the walls. But the cold was dangerous. They could die out there in that exposed little shack. There were only a few boards of wood between his family and the cold, hard prairie wind.

  Mr. Rutt just said, “That’s the best I can do.”

  They had to move. They were bringing a baby into the world and the shack was not fit for it. But they had no money to move. The harvest was over and Mr. Rutt only had ten acres, so they hadn’t made much. Certainly not enough to move—not even enough to make it through the winter months. With twenty-four dollars for five months, they were destitute.

  Mitsue went out looking for winter work and found a small job mending dresses in Coaldale. It was nice to be back in a warm shop working with a sewing machine. The first few days were difficult because her hands were so callused she had difficulty threading the needle and delicately guiding the cloth through the machine. It reminded her of her work in Vancouver, of better days. But now her hands looked like those of a beggar, cracked, with caked-in dirt. It didn’t matter how hard she scrubbed them, they were stained with hard work.

  Hideo and Hanpei took up work at a large farm. A truck picked them up every morning at seven. This gave them an extra hour of sleep. Waking up each morning was a hardship. The bedpan would be frozen. They had to run outside to do their ablutions.

  Mitsue’s morning sickness subsided, but she was getting bigger. As she grew over that winter, everyone agreed that they had to move from the Rutt farm. There was no choice. The shack was just too cold. Rutt’s land was too small.

  By mid-winter they were flat broke. Winter work was tough to come by, maybe an odd job here and there for Hideo, but that wasn’t enough to keep the family going. Huddled in the old shack, they could hear—and feel—the cold prairie wind sweep across the barren white land. They were alone, isolated, and totally lost. They had been brought out to work with the sugar beets and that was all done. Now what? Nobody had an answer. They were just sitting here like squatters. They had to break the ice in the dugout and melt it for water. They had no money, no prospects, no food.

  Everyone felt numb, except for Hideo. He just said, Let’s find another farm and get different jobs for the winter. That was that. He cleaned himself up, put on some slacks, and went to Mr. Rutt’s front door and knocked. June, Hanpei, and Mitsue watched from the shack. They could see him smiling at Mr. Rutt, smiling and shaking his head. He was thanking him. Actually thanking him. And apologizing. He said he was sorry that his family could not continue working his land, but it was not enough to sustain them, and with a baby on the way they needed more work. They needed more money. He thanked him for fixing the shack up. They shook hands.

  Hideo turned and walked back. They were all standing there at the table staring at him.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  They ate the last of the rice from the tinned box that evening. Mitsue’s cup scraped the bottom as she reached for each grain. Over dinner, Hideo said that he thought they could get on at a farm close to the one where Mitsue’s parents worked, a few miles down the highway. He would go there tomorrow. He was decisive. Mitsue’s shoulders straightened a little that day. In her mind’s eye she kept seeing Hideo smiling at Mr. Rutt. She loved him for it. That man knew how to smile.

  The next morning, Hideo dressed in his warmest clothes and walked the three and a half miles to the farm he had mentioned the night before. He caught the owner just as he was pulling his truck out of the lane. He agreed to take them on provided they clean up the vacant farmhouse in the back. It was a real trade up. The house was vacant and dirty, but it had actual walls and no animals had lived
in it.

  Mitsue’s first child, Ronald Satoshi, would be born into a home.

  Before Ron could walk, Mitsue was pregnant again. She had just gone back to work sewing, so she tried to conceal the pregnancy for as long as she could. She’d wrap her clothes tight like an obi around her waist. She ended up working right up until the very day Glory was born.

  Mitsue had to be out in the field as soon as she could walk around—three days after Glory was born. It was midway through their second harvest. Running between the field and the farmhouse, Mitsue spent her days not knowing if she was coming or going.

  When Glory got a little bigger, she could be taken outside while the adults worked. Hideo would haul out a little table and set up Glory’s baby dolls. The children had a chalkboard for writing on and Ron had a few toy trucks. Hideo bought him a little string guitar that he would play all the time. They grew up along the treeline of the farm, playing in the shade as their family laboured.

  Come lunchtime, Mitsue would gather her children and take them indoors to eat. She’d take them back after lunch and get them set up again. Ron would always ask, “Can you stay with us, Momma? Just for a bit?” She never could.

  The adults put on their overalls and went out into the field every day. They would come back dirty and callused, their backs bent, their fingers cut up. Dirt found its way everywhere: into their mouths and hair. That was their life. Hideo and Mitsue had not been on a date, had not had a single meal out since their wedding night. They worked and slept.

  Ron (left) and Glory Sakamoto in Coaldale, Alberta

  By the winter of 1943, it was clear that they were not going to be heading home anytime soon. They had thought they would be allowed back to B.C. by Christmas. It was dawning on Mitsue that her family could be out on that field for years. The more she yearned to return, the further away it seemed.

  Meanwhile, their world in Vancouver was disappearing. The politicians in B.C. had employed a scorched earth policy. They didn’t want the Japanese to come back and they were doing their best to make sure they wouldn’t.

  Mitsue hardly ever got mail. Who was there to write to? What was there to say? When a letter from her friend in Celtic was delivered to the main farm house, her heart sang. In her memory, she traced where the envelope she held had been. The stamp might have been purchased at the Shintanis’ confectionery store down the street from her beloved row house. Mitsue hurried indoors, desperate to read the letter.

  She opened the envelope slowly, savouring the mundane, everyday task. She slid the neatly folded paper out of the envelope and opened it up. Mitsue knew that the letter had been opened and inspected by the censors. There were no black marks on it, but there was not much to censor. The letter was only a few sentences long.

  The Cultural Centre in Celtic had burned down. It was gone. Everything in it was ashes.

  Burned down? Who would do such a thing? They had stored their life memories in that building: family photo albums, religious shrines, precious kimonos, family heirlooms from Japan passed down from generation to generation.

  Mitsue had never felt so alone. Her home was very far away. Was it even home anymore? All of their family possessions were gone, either confiscated, stolen, or burned. The fire sent a message: Don’t come back. You are not wanted here.

  Mitsue was glad that nobody was home. She would have tried to keep it all in. She would have tried to maintain her composure. Sitting there alone, she let the tears come. They soaked the letter lying on the table. She said goodbye to her life in Vancouver. This situation was not temporary. This shabby farm might be their new life. The thought made her cry even harder. It was such a hard life. She didn’t want to live like this. She couldn’t let her children live like this.

  She had to tell her parents. She picked herself up from the table, dried her eyes, put on a little makeup to cover the puffiness, and made her way to her parents’ house. She walked in the ditch most of the way, afraid that gravel would flick up and hit her if a truck drove past. She paused at the laneway entrance. She could see Yosuke working on a piece of farm equipment. She wanted to just keep walking. Yosuke looked up, saw Mitsue, and waved. He was smiling as she walked up the lane. Mitsue hugged him and asked if her mother was around.

  “In the house. What is wrong, Mitsue?” he asked. Her face had given her away.

  They went into the house and sat down in the kitchen. Mitsue began to explain, but the words escaped her. She sat there staring at her parents.

  “The Centre was burned down. They burned it right to the ground.” She bowed her head. Tears fell onto her folded hands.

  Her parents did not cry. They did not even flinch.

  “Don’t cry, Mitsue, we have each other. They can’t burn that down. We have our dignity. That can’t be turned to ashes.”

  Tomi passed Mitsue a handkerchief. “It was just things. Not life.”

  They quietly finished their cup of ocha and then Mitsue walked home. This time she stayed on the road.

  PART 3

  Release

  CHAPTER 8

  Going Home

  With the war winding down, anti-Asian groups looked to solidify their gains. They had had the Japanese removed. Now, they wanted them gone for good. One hundred miles was not enough. They wanted an ocean between the Japanese and B.C.’s jobs. In Prime Minister King, they found a sympathetic ear. King knew he needed to carry the B.C. seats in the upcoming spring 1945 election. He cut a deal. He would give the Japanese Canadians a choice: go east of the Rockies after the war, or go back to Japan. By 1944, nearly half the Japanese—over ten thousand—were facing government repatriation.

  Mitsue could hardly look at a newspaper. She stopped taking Ron to the grocery store. One by one, each provincial premier came out against allowing Japanese to remain in their province after the war: Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba … each garnering his own headline.

  Time magazine ran a cover with the headline WHO WANTS JAPS? NO TAKERS.

  Mayors, premiers, the prime minister—all had a message for the Japanese of Canada: Go home.

  The problem was, they were home.

  A mother is the most desperate person. Mitsue could not do anything to protect her children. It ate at her day and night. She continued to toil in the fields daily. At every break, Mitsue would rush over to Ron and Glory playing in the shade. She wondered if life would be worse as war refugees in Japan.

  Their turn came. The dreaded letter from the Department of Labour arrived. Mitsue hated to see anything that looked official. It was always bad news. Everyone gathered around Hideo as he slowly opened the envelope. The stamp was four cents and it had a picture of a soldier on it. The letter said that the government would pay for them to go to Japan after the war—or sooner if that could be arranged.

  The Canadian government was paying its citizens to leave. It was a bribe of the worst kind. Some people agreed to go. They were terrified of being separated from their families or being left homeless. Nobody knew what might happen. They signed in fear.

  There would be no signature from Mitsue and Hideo. The letter was neatly folded and put back in the envelope. It was stored with the other government documents. Mitsue’s heart swelled. They were Canadians. They were not going to agree to go anywhere. They had—for the time being—made a decision about their fate. They had said no. It felt good to stand their ground. But it came with consequences. The letter had ended with a terrifyingly banal threat:

  These assurances do not apply to persons of the Japanese race repatriated on other than a voluntary basis.

  There was no reading between the lines. Agree to go now and we’ll pay for your trip. If we kick you out later, you’re on your own.

  A few weeks later, on August 6, 1945, at thirty thousand feet above Hiroshima, Japan, a much less banal event occurred.

  William Parsons’s nickname was Deak. He was the chief of the Ordinance Division for the Manhattan Project. He knew “Little Boy” better than anyone, so the job fell on him to arm t
he world’s first atomic bomb en route to the target. It took him fifteen minutes.

  The sky was clear at 3:02 a.m. As the bomb doors opened, Deak saw below him a city.

  Three minutes later, 70,000 lives were lost, their shadows imposed against melted walls. They may have been the lucky ones. The fate of the living was indescribable—their faces simply melted. It was impossible to tell if you were looking at the front or the back of a person—unless you could spot a mouth.

  Another 70,000 would die. One bomb, 140,000 souls.

  September 2, 1945, marked the war’s end for most of the world. For Mitsue, things went on exactly the same. Nothing changed. They were not free to go. They had no money to go anywhere even if the end of the war had brought them freedom.

  After concluding the war with Japan, the Canadian government turned its mind to the Japanese problem at home. Prime Minister King passed three orders-in-council which, together, laid the legal foundation for mass deportation. All told, 10,347 Japanese were on the deportation list, three-quarters of them Canadian-born citizens. Thousands were children. The prime minister hastily wrote General Douglas MacArthur, stating that his government was “anxious to proceed with the repatriation and deportation as soon as this can be arranged without causing you embarrassment. … You will appreciate the desire of the Canadian Government to proceed with these plans as soon as possible. The Canadian Government would be grateful for your advice as to the earliest date on which you would be prepared to have these people arrive in Japan.”

  But perhaps the veneer of national security had worn thin with the cessation of hostilities. Whatever the reason, Japanese Canadians finally began receiving some support from their fellow Canadians. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

  By December 27, 1945, enough funds had been raised by Japanese Canadians and other concerned Canadians to retain counsel and issue writs against Attorney General St. Laurent to test the validity of the deportation in a court of law. Astonishingly, this was the first legal action ever taken to protest the years of injustice. Citizens took to the streets and held vigils. Over one thousand people crammed into Toronto’s Jarvis Collegiate Institute to hear Rabbi Abraham Feinberg speak up. He knew only too well what happened when silence prevailed.