Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  It was Akira Tsuruta who came often to see me in these days, wondering if I had made the right decision. “How’s your mother?” Tsuruta would ask. “Are you going to see her this weekend?” And without knowing quite why, I would go to see my mother and my brothers on the weekend. But I could not stay, nor could I explain to my mother why.

  “My father died just before I came to Brazil,” confessed Tsuruta. “I was in a position to inherit everything, but I left it all behind. I suppose it is still there waiting for me to return.” Tsuruta shrugged, “I have one sister. She must be your age now. My mother wrote me to say that she will be married soon. She is hoping that I will return for the wedding, but I cannot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No money,” laughed Tsuruta. All of us knew the rumors that Tsuruta came from royal stock, and we all assumed that he must have the money to do as he pleased. “Well, I suppose I could ask my mother to send my inheritance, but then, that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?” Tsuruta smiled. “You’re lucky, Ichiro. You have your family here with you. I haven’t seen mine in ten years.”

  “Do you miss Japan?” I asked, wondering myself what it was I had left behind and had no memory of.

  “Yes,” Tsuruta admitted.

  “But you are here building a new future,” I suggested, trying to project the sort of arguments I had heard Kantaro use.

  “Well, that’s true, but it’s hard to be reconciled to the idea that I can’t go back.”

  “But you came here to settle.”

  “People who come to settle make families, build homes, create children. These are the people who can see the future blossoming before their very eyes. It’s a shame to deprive your mother of that pleasure,” Tsuruta paused and added, “as I have done.”

  I did not understand the meaning of this. I had always thought that Akira Tsuruta was an avid partner in Kantaro’s great plans, but now it seemed to me that he was really quite lonely, quite fragile. For so many years he had been my teacher, his patience and quiet humor so different from the vibrant and agile Kantaro. Tsuruta placed his gentle hand on my shoulder; his long delicate fingers had been made rough by farm work. His touch both soothed and frightened me. The question in my eyes made Tsuruta withdraw his hand. He smiled and left. A silence passed between us, but strangely, I felt no discomfort in this. From then on, Tsuruta’s kindness followed me around as always but expected nothing in return.

  I was still too young to understand much about the life I was on the road to choosing. It was not that my family was less important to me. Perhaps it was the nature of Esperança to give up its youth to great ideas, to the hope that it was possible to live very close to an ideal. Kantaro had set the example. From the time I joined Kantaro’s place, my relationship to my family changed forever. My brothers continued to be my brothers, but my peers at Kantaro’s were in some way more than brothers to me. As with other families, each of my brothers is very different in character; we would have in another time and place perhaps gone our separate ways. Fate would have it that they would also come to live at Kantaro’s. I do not feel that I can speak for my brothers, yet our collective life has dictated that they would also have the very same memories. Collective memories. I am unable to say, from this time in my life on, that my memories belong to me alone, but can only vouch for the particular filter I applied to the lens of those memories.

  For several years, I lived and worked for months at a time at Kantaro’s place, returning to my family periodically when they required my labor. My brothers Hiro and Eiji both came at different times to live and work at Kantaro’s place. I was glad to see them join me. We became much closer during this time, and I felt that they understood rather than resented my choice. My mother did not oppose us when we left for Kantaro’s place. She seemed somewhat bewildered, and I realize now that she must have felt quite overwhelmed by life in Brazil without my father. I am sorry that I did not know how to relieve her of her hardships. I know that it was, in fact, my mother who took up where my father left off. Having a family of five sons, she did not think that she would hold on to all of us; after all, everyone in Esperança had sons at that time who had taken up Kantaro’s banner.

  Kantaro’s place became a natural meeting place, even for those young men who did not take up residence. In small towns all over Brazil, the central plaza has traditionally been a meeting place for young people, but in those days in Esperança, it was Kantaro’s place—a rustic outpost at the north end of Esperança—where you could always get a meal, enjoy the banter of friends, toss a baseball, exchange gossip, all this in return for laboring for a cause. Tsuruta might be rehearsing a play, Befu discussing detailed projections for his chicken incubation, and Kantaro talking to newcomers, inspiring youth with a plan. It is difficult perhaps to convey the excitement and satisfaction so many of us felt. It was more than the gathering of youthful energy; it was a gathering of minds. Looking back on it all, I don’t wonder at my complete enthusiasm for Kantaro’s words. It was a period of youthful idealism, and Kantaro challenged all of us to live our ideals. “The main thing,” Kantaro said, “is rejuvenating the land. The future depends on fertilizer. Without it, the land will go bad, people will desert their farms, and there will be no future.”

  In time, Kantaro took his message everywhere. He began to talk about uniting the Japanese rural youth all around Brazil. There were Japanese colonies as far north as the Amazon River in Pará and as far south as Paraná. I began to see myself as part of a great movement of Japanese rural youth. Already, we were naturally tied to each other by the growing network of cooperatives which the Japanese farmers had created to govern and support their interests. Kantaro saw that we could use this network of farming cooperatives, beginning with the influential São Paulo Sarandi Cooperative. He also knew intuitively that there was a new generation of young Japanese immigrants in Brazil who needed to find reasons and a focus for their energies.

  Kantaro organized a conference in São Paulo, and young representatives from Japanese colonies all over Brazil gathered to hear Kantaro’s ideas. “Until now, we have occupied ourselves in the great task of clearing the virgin forest. We have used the land, planted coffee, rice, and cotton. In a matter of years, we’ve become guilty of depleting the soil of its natural fertility. Many Japanese have left the land and gone off to the city. We must find a way to keep people on the land. The answer is simple: restore the land’s fertility.”

  And Kantaro had Befu’s plan. Perhaps the figures were slightly exaggerated, but the plan was clear. “In Esperança, we have already begun with fifty-two leghorn chicks. Now we have more than twenty times that. Our calculations show that one thousand birds provide thirty tons of manure a year! Six tons of manure produced by only two hundred birds can rejuvenate four acres of land or fertilize two thousand coffee trees! The future depends on fertilizer!”

  But Kantaro always thought big. He wanted to spread his plan around, to lead a great team or perhaps an army of young men like me. “Here gathered under one roof are one hundred and twenty young men representing sixty different areas. Until now, each of us has been scattered, working alone with no real power. Today I invite all of you to unite as one movement. My proposal is to create centers in every rural area. Every area will start a poultry farm, plant corn, and build chicken yards and houses. In these centers, I propose that we work for free and that the profits from the sale of eggs be kept by the centers. This money can be used to create schools, to educate the youth, to build hospitals, to strengthen our rural colonies.” Kantaro overwhelmed us with the possibilities, and then he assured us of our participation in the greater scheme of things.

  “We are ready for a change which will ensure our future. Together, we have the potential of revolutionizing agriculture using intensive methods on a large scale. Our productivity will be enormous. What is the destiny of young Japanese men like ourselves half a world away from our homeland? This is our destiny! This is our work! I am not promising that it will be easy
. We in Esperança have spent our hard labor on this dream, but we have proven that it is no idle dream, that it can work! Who among you is willing to make this sacrifice for the future?”

  I was there. I stood up with all the others and applauded Kantaro, filled with pride and emotion. Saburo called us “Kantaro’s communal compost,” the human stuff that churned his dreams. But Kantaro’s dreams were undeniably my dreams. I had found my place and my work. There was no longer any confusion in my mind. The rice belonged to Esperança. I belonged.

  PART II:

  Haru

  Love is accompanied by a continual uneasiness over jealousy or privation, little suited to marriage, which is a state of enjoyment and peace. People do not marry in order to think exclusively of each other, but in order to fulfill the duties of civil society jointly, to govern the house prudently, to rear their children well. Lovers never see anyone but themselves. . . .

  . . . a place so different from what it was can become what it is only with cultivation and care, yet nowhere do I see the slightest trace of cultivation. All is green, fresh, vigorous, and the gardener’s hand is nowhere to be seen.

  You cannot imagine with what zeal and gaiety everything is done. They sing, they laugh all day, and the work goes better for it. Everything is done in the greatest familiarity. Everyone is equal. . . .

  Freedom knows no bounds other than honesty.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Julie, or The New Eloise

  CHAPTER 8:

  Compost

  Some people say I married Kantaro because of great love, but they all know that it was really Kantaro who had great love. For my part, I married him because I am as stubborn as he. Well, perhaps not as stubborn. Everything Kantaro did in his life, he did because he wanted to. When you think of it, that is not something many people can say. Most people, especially women, are forced to do things because of circumstances, because they have children, because their children are hungry or crying. But Kantaro never cared about circumstances. Funny, but it was because he was that sort of man that people have loved him so much.

  Kantaro was a man who was full of life. It was as if there was something in his chest that wanted to burst. He compared it to a cup brimming over. I knew this feeling of his, and I wondered how it could be so. This was something people wanted for themselves as well, this feeling of being full to bursting, this great love of everything around you. At first I was afraid of this feeling of his, that I could not fulfill such a great need to live. But as time went on, I saw that life spilling over can be a troublesome thing. Someone like me is always needed to wipe things up, to clean up the mess.

  I had all of my children by the time I was thirty-two. First there was Kanzo. Then Mieko. Then Asa. Then Hanako, and last was Iku. Four girls and one boy. Poor Kanzo was the first and only boy. It has not been easy being Kantaro’s son, but it was not easy to be Kantaro’s brother or father for that matter. Still, Kanzo was lucky to grow up with so many children. He was a very happy child. Some of the girls are tougher than the boys. My girls in particular are tougher. Some people say that’s my fault. Kantaro liked the children when they were about two or three and starting to talk. After they could really talk, he didn’t seem so interested and left the rest of their years for others to notice. Maybe Kantaro wanted more boys, but he never said that. I don’t think he really thought about it. There were always so many children around; what was one more girl or one more boy? They all grew up together, and we were all one family. Kantaro said they were all the future.

  Kantaro’s first and closest friend was Akira Tsuruta. Before we knew that Tsuruta would die, he and Befu had a terrible argument about whether Japan could win a world war. Not that I understood any of this, but it always seemed that the true reason for their argument had nothing to do with politics. From the time Befu arrived in Esperança and introduced his ideas about chickens and manure to Kantaro, there were differences that set Befu and Tsuruta apart. To begin with, Seijiro Befu was a small hairy man with dark eyes. He was a very intense sort with a fiery character. Akira Tsuruta, on the other hand, was tall and thin, fair and rather hairless. And he was a very gentle sort, so gentle that sometimes I wonder he didn’t break. While Befu was easily excited, full of sudden ideas and actions, Tsuruta was always calm and patient and thoughtful. Befu found Tsuruta’s thoughtfulness irritating, while Tsuruta found Befu irrational and insensitive. Tsuruta probably never thought so, but Befu somehow decided that Tsuruta was second-in-command to Kantaro. This sounds strange to me when I think about the man Tsuruta was and how he and Kantaro could be quietly happy together. It was not at all the way Befu saw it, as if we were all chickens with Kantaro on top and then Tsuruta and then someone else below and so on. But Befu always saw things that way. Tsuruta didn’t seem to care, but Befu liked to dance about and show his spurs.

  People remember that Tsuruta was a scholar, like Mizuoka, and a poet. They liked to think that Tsuruta made Esperança even more special. “Interesting people live in Esperança,” they might comment. “Akira Tsuruta, for example, a second cousin to the Emperor himself.”

  “No, no,” another might contest. “I’ve heard he’s a first cousin.”

  “Do you think the Emperor has plans for Esperança? It is possible, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Well, Baron Tamaki has a ranch there.”

  “Esperança—intelligentsia, Christians, and snobs.”

  Akira Tsuruta was a very smart man, but no one wanted to listen when he said that a Japanese victory in a great war against a world power like the United States would be impossible, that it would destroy Japan.

  Befu, who was always looking for an argument with Tsuruta, was enraged by this point of view. “What would you know of these things with your simpering sniveling ways?” he screamed at Tsuruta. “You are an insult to the Japanese race! You haven’t the courage to fight a man’s war, so you speak in feminine tones about the tragedy of war! You are afraid to die!”

  “It’s not a question of my courage or your courage or whether any of us is afraid to die,” Tsuruta retorted coolly. “You have no understanding of history or politics or economic realities. Mizuoka lived for five years in the United States. Listen to what he says about that country.” Tsuruta spoke of Mizuoka, his and Kantaro’s teacher, but who was Shūhei Mizuoka to Befu? Befu, who had come more recently from Japan, thought he knew the real truth.

  “You and Mizuoka are the same. Minds wrapped up in so-called Western history and philosophy, you are blinded to the truth. You think because you read pretty words that that is what America must be, but I heard Mizuoka say that he left America because the Americans called him a ‘yellow slant-eyed jap.’ What does that mean? It means that all your education and wise talk is for nothing. If we want stature in this world, we must get it by force.”

  “At what cost? Have you thought of that? To begin with, Japan is an island. How can we maintain a war without natural resources? America has endless resources. How many years, no, how many months can Japan survive without oil or coal? For how many days can we even propose to sustain a war?”

  “You are the great thinker? Where are your powers of strategy? The greater coprosperity sphere encompasses all of Asia—”

  “What nonsense!” Tsuruta scoffed. “Asia for Asians or Asia for Japan? China? Korea? Indonesia? Do you think they will run to our side to battle the rest of the world? We have not been good brothers for centuries. They do not trust us.”

  And so the argument went. But in those days, I don’t remember that anyone thought about Japan losing a war, and no one could predict the horrible destruction and loss of life that war would bring. There was nothing in our imagination or experience like this. I thought myself that if we were living in Japan, Kantaro would be sent to war, but I don’t think he thought about dying. He said that his destiny was to survive and to be productive in Brazil; this was his sacrifice to Japan. When the war was over, young men like Kantaro would be ready to contribute to a prosperous peacetime
. The idea that Japan should not go to war did not seem to be a question. They say that most Japanese in Brazil in those days felt this way. Kantaro now says that if you think about it, we were very young, all born in Japan, too foolish to know the cost of war. And while people like us came to Brazil to live and settle, most Japanese only thought about returning. Those in Esperança who thought war was a mistake were among the few. In those days, it was courageous of Tsuruta to speak out loud. Of course, my father always said he was a Christian and a pacifist who did not believe in war, but he was not a man to speak unless it was necessary. Tsuruta’s opinions were written publicly by Kantaro’s friend Shigeshi Kasai in the Brazil Shimpo, but Kasai was always that way, so no one paid much attention. Everyone was careful about this matter, careful not to say too much. There were always angry people like Befu, and as we discovered later, there were even spies. People listened carefully and remembered what others said.