My father-in-law Naotaro had an aching tooth. He was feeling terrible pain and decided he must see Takehashi, our dentist friend in São Paulo. Kōhei Takehashi and his family had come originally to Esperança to live. Then he decided to move to São Paulo to build a bigger practice, but he always returned to Esperança to treat our teeth. He and Kantaro were good friends. They liked to talk about cameras and taking photographs. Kantaro was impressed with a new camera that Takehashi had, and Takehashi liked to take photographs of the baseball team when they went to São Paulo. When he came to Esperança, he usually stayed with us, and when we went to São Paulo, we stayed with the Takehashis. People like Naotaro who couldn’t wait for Takehashi to come to Esperança would take the train to São Paulo to see him. Takehashi never charged us much, and he always liked to have you pose for a photo portrait in his collection. Everyone liked to joke that Takehashi only asked you to pose if you had nice teeth.
Naotaro did not like to go by himself to São Paulo. He thought Waka should come, but she did not feel well. I felt badly for Naotaro, whose jaw was beginning to swell. Only my youngest child Iku was in diapers by then, and there were always plenty of mothers to look after things. I agreed to go with Naotaro. It was maybe the second time I ever went to the city. We did not know that there would be special wartime travel restrictions, and we left for the city rather innocently.
“You’re lucky you came when you did,” Takehashi commented to my father-in-law.
Naotaro nodded. He could not say anything with his mouth stretched opened.
The dentist pressed his mirror against Naotaro’s lip. “Now we need special passes to go anywhere. I don’t know if you’ll be able to go back to Esperança. Have you thought about that? And did you hear that the newspapers have all been closed? Kasai’s paper closed up a while ago. Kantaro knows that Kasai disappeared, doesn’t he? I wonder what happened to him? Is it true Kantaro hid him in Esperança for a while? Where did he go?”
Naotaro shook his head.
“And our money. Money is frozen. Can’t take money out of the bank.
Only two contos per month.”
Naotaro’s eyes blinked and opened wide.
“That’s tender there, isn’t it,” Takehashi said tapping the sore molar. “Japanese banks all closed. Brazilians took them all over. Sarandi Cooperative too. I heard they were closed down. No Japanese can run anything anywhere. Can’t speak Japanese. Most of the Japanese schools were closed a long time ago, but I heard that the headmasters and some of the teachers of the old schools have been put in jail on suspicion of espionage. Japanese can’t gather in groups of more than two. How are we going to comply with that? Someone said that there happened to be three Japanese waiting at a street corner, and they were all arrested! The restaurants will all have to close. I don’t think I can survive here much longer. How can I run a practice under these conditions? If I have three Japanese patients waiting out there, we could all get arrested. I’m thinking about taking my family and moving back to Esperança until the war is over. What do you think?”
Even if Naotaro could have answered the question, he would not have had time. Takehashi’s wife, Shizu, and I ran into the office to warn them, but suddenly, we were surrounded by Brazilian policemen. They searched through everything, emptying the desk drawers onto the floor, sifting through Japanese books, letters, and newspapers. A radio Takehashi liked to listen to and a box of small but rather sharp dental tools were immediately confiscated. Naotaro gagged on a piece of cotton the dentist had placed between his molar and the side of his mouth. Takehashi held his dental mirror and drill in the air. “You are both under arrest in accordance with the wartime restrictions of Japanese aliens,” announced one of the policemen. At this, Takehashi and Naotaro were handcuffed and taken away.
Many people who were leaders in the community were arrested: Japanese schoolteachers, presidents of Japanese prefecture societies and other sorts of Japanese clubs, business association officers, presidents of agricultural cooperatives, Buddhist priests, newspaper owners. Most people were released after two or three days, but it was still a frightening thing. People feared for their lives and their homes and businesses. Everywhere, Japanese burned letters, commendations, diplomas and books. They buried photographs, heirlooms and memorabilia in boxes under the earth, under their houses. People hid or destroyed tokens of precious memories of their lives and families in Japan. Swords, knives, pistols, rifles, arms of any kind were all buried or destroyed. If the police came, they must not find anything. We heard a terrible story about a man and his son who were shot while police were searching their house. The police found nothing but a small cache of money, which they decided to keep for themselves. It was a very small amount, but it was hard-earned savings and meant a great deal to this poor family. When the man and his son tried to prevent this injustice, both were shot and killed. This frightened many people and caused a great wave of fear and suspicion.
I don’t think it really occurred to anyone that the Japanese in Esperança might be a threat. My father went to talk to the Baiano. Everyone said the Baiano was a dangerous young man, that he built and controlled Santa Cruz d’Azedinha. But I knew him from many years past, and it seemed to be an exaggeration. He and my father worked together to build roads between Esperança and Santa Cruz, and they had an understanding. I heard the Baiano say that he liked “those Japanese.” My father said the Baiano agreed that we were hard workers who made the land produce. The Baiano said, “Brazil can’t survive without the Japanese on the land. These people produce the food we all eat. We’d be slitting our own throats to deny it.” I know the Baiano had great respect for my father. Because of this he said, “I know these people. Takeo Okumura is against the war. He’s a Christian pacifist. I don’t know if I agree with that, but he’s got his ideals. These people came here to settle. We’ve got no argument with them. We’re all in this together. What’s it to us if those others want to fight thousands of miles across the sea? I don’t want to hear of anyone giving the Japanese problems. When all of this business settles down again, we still have to build this town.” Because the Baiano said this, Brazilians in Santa Cruz also agreed.
There were a lot of stories about the Baiano, and people did not easily cross him. People were afraid of his deputies. They called them jagunços which was the same as saying that they were hired gunmen. My father did not agree with the Baiano’s ways, but he did not want anyone to get hurt. The Baiano called the war “political nonsense.” To him, his town, Santa Cruz, was more important. He liked to come around and ask questions about our cooperative, about how we sold our produce. My father worked very hard for the Esperança Cooperative, and it was very productive. The Baiano liked the idea of a cooperative, and he wondered how Santa Cruz could use it.
The Baiano protected the Japanese in Esperança by looking the other way. First he warned my father, and then he sent his deputies to search our houses. When the deputies came, we had already buried or burned anything suspicious. The Baiano knew it was impossible for us not to speak Japanese, so he ignored us. Even Mizuoka continued secretly to teach Japanese school. We felt sure that the Baiano would warn us about any outsiders who might come to snoop around. Except for only one incident, these years were in general, I think, a very quiet time.
That is to say, it was quiet for most of us, excepting my father; I know he felt many difficulties. The wartime law was that no Japanese could be president or director of any business. Mostly, Japanese found Brazilians who were friendly and agreed to be president in name only. Perhaps they got their salaries while the Japanese worked to keep the business going. It was just a formality. In the case of the Esperança Cooperative, my father had to let the Baiano become the director. At first this seemed like a good idea, but eventually we discovered that the Baiano really wanted to know about cooperatives. He made my father teach him everything.
This was a very big headache for my father. He said that the Baiano understood about farmers getting a better pric
e, but it was another problem to explain about sharing. This was not the Baiano’s way. He didn’t like to share. I saw my father running in circles to keep the Baiano and the farmers happy.
“It’s not communism,” said the Baiano, “but it comes damn close. Yet I can see how it works. This might well be the answer for agriculture in Brazil. I think we’ve got something here, Okumura.” All during the war I saw my father trying to teach the Baiano about cooperatives. It was a strange thing to see the Baiano converted to this new way of thinking. If it is true that the Baiano was a dangerous man who used violence to get his land, my father did a very incredible thing. Perhaps the Baiano would have become old and respected anyway. He was a very good man to us. Even Kantaro says so. When others took advantage of our situation, the Baiano did not. Kantaro said the Baiano was innocent.
Even though things were quiet in Esperança, it was still a difficult time. Prices were frozen. Savings were frozen. There was a frost that winter, and the harvest was poor. People wondered how long the war would go on, how long we could wait for better times. More and more people in Esperança were in debt. Friends came to talk about their troubles. Kantaro always said that if we worked and lived together, it would be much easier. Many people had sons who already lived with us. Ichiro Terada and his brothers Hiro, Eiji, and Yōzo were already with us. Their mother, Sei Terada, could not work her farm alone with only Kōichi, her youngest. Her sons convinced her to live with us. The Teradas turned their land over for planting. Lately, Sei Terada was always at our place tending pregnant women and helping me care for sick people. She felt happiest in this work and was relieved not to have to worry about her farm. Kantaro’s parents, Naotaro and Waka, too, decided to move in. They left their land to us for planting. More and more people in Esperança thought about moving in with us—the only place in Esperança where life seemed to prosper. Families had already come from as far as São Paulo to join. One man had worked for a Japanese bank that closed. Another had worked for Shigeshi Kasai’s old newspaper, the Brazil Shimpo. These people suddenly had no way to live. All of them came with an idea of joining us to survive through hard times. By the end of the war, there were more than three hundred of us living together.
Many more houses had to be built. We built small cottages one after another. We had to make the dining hall longer, and our kitchen, laundry, and the baths had to be almost twice as large. Many men worked to build a larger water tower. The saws in the lumberyard buzzed all day long to make boards for the new buildings. A man who was a carpenter joined us; he opened a small shop next to the foundry, setting up his tools and saws on shelves and work benches. He was a very clever man. He took the smaller pieces of wood and built simple furniture for everyone.
Of course, Befu continued to build his barnyards for his poultry project. This chicken operation of Befu’s was beginning to spread out in every direction. There were pens, feeding troughs, and chickens and roosters cackling and crowing everywhere. I saw the new chicks every day and said, “Befu-san, what are we going to do with so many chickens?” But he and Kantaro were already talking about plans to clear the forest to the northeast for six new chicken houses.
Well, everyone found some job they wanted to do. One man brought his special breed of watermelon and spent all his time growing watermelons. He told me that perhaps his misfortune had been a blessing in disguise. Now that he had joined us, he could spend all his time developing a perfect watermelon; he didn’t have to worry about so many daily matters of running a farm by himself. Very soon, our New World Ranch was a small busy world. For the moment, we were a large active family protected from another world torn by war.
Shizu Takehashi and I did not know what to do when we saw her husband and my father-in-law taken away by the police. We tried to go to the jail to find out about them, but it was no use. Then, three days later, they came home. They were mostly very hungry, and nothing bad had happened except they’d been interrogated.
“What is your name?”
“Naotaro Uno.”
“Where were you born?”
“In Hyogo prefecture in Japan.”
“When did you come to Brazil?”
“In 1925, on the Brazil-maru.”
“Where do you reside?”
“In Esperança, near the town of Santa Cruz d’Azedinha. I immigrated here with my entire family, my wife, my children. I have grandchildren born in this country. We have our own land, a sixty-acre farm. We have come here to live. Brazil is our home now.”
“What are you doing in São Paulo? Don’t you know that your travel is restricted?”
“We are Christians. We are honest people. I do not believe in this war.”
“Do you profess loyalty to the Japanese Emperor?”
“We came here to create a new civilization based on the ideals of Christianity and freedom of religion. We came to start a new way of life.”
“Do you profess loyalty to the Japanese state? Would you renounce your Japanese citizenship?”
“I am a citizen of the world.”
“Crazy Japanese! What’s he talking about?”
After this, Kōhei and Shizu Takehashi decided that life in the city would not do. They only talked about how Esperança was their true home and how it would be safer there for them and their children. Naotaro said immediately, “You must come home to Esperança. You must join us. You are a dentist, and we need your skills.”
Naotaro and I helped the Takehashis pack their belongings. Shizu was like Waka; she liked to gossip. She said, “I heard an interesting thing. Hachiro Yōgu is in São Paulo now. He came back from the Amazon.” Shizu looked away. She pretended to be busy with her packing, but she was waiting for me to say something. All these years and somehow I had forgotten about Yōgu. I knew people liked to gossip; they liked to tell about Yōgu and his horse at my wedding. “Why did he do that?” they always wanted to know. “Why?”
“He ran away with Kimi Kawagoe,” I said.
“I heard they have eight children.”
“Eight?” It sounded impossible, but I had five.
“It was too difficult to live up there, so they came back.”
I thought about the Amazon. When people heard these rumors, no one was surprised. They all said, “Yōgu was a wild jungle monkey anyway, but poor Kimi.” I asked Shizu, “What will they do now?”
“That’s just the problem. As soon as Yōgu got back, he took a long bath in the hotel. The fumes from the burning charcoal heating the bath went to his head, and he fell over and banged his head. Well, when he woke up, they say he couldn’t talk. Can’t remember anything.” Shizu shook her head.
“Yōgu? Can’t talk? Can’t remember?”
“No. They say he looks at Kimi and their children like strangers. Scratches his head. Stares around all day. I didn’t believe it myself. A completely different man. Can you imagine? Totally helpless.”
“What will Kimi do?”
“She’s too proud to ask for help. I think she should go home to her parents in Esperança, but she’s probably so ashamed. Her money is going to run out; then the hotel will throw them out.”
“Eight children?” I thought about this. What sort of life did Kimi have in the Amazon with a man like Hachiro Yōgu? I always heard people say that it was such a waste. Kimi could play the piano and sing. She was so educated, they said. Such a waste. What did they mean? What did they expect?
Naotaro heard everything and said, “These are difficult days for everyone. I will go see Kimi at that hotel and tell her to come home with us. You Takehashis are coming to join us. She and her family must come as well.”
Naotaro convinced Kimi to come home to Esperança with us. All of her children followed behind in a big huddle. I did not know what to say to Kimi, so I looked at her children and said things like, “That little one there has a cold. I know some good medicine for him.” Then I saw Yōgu. It was true what they said. He did not know me or anyone. He wandered this way and that. One of his children always h
ad to run behind to grab him and bring him back.
When we arrived, Naotaro and I went first to take Kimi to her old home. Her mother Kinu was still always in bed. People rarely saw her. I heard that her father Shinkichi Kawagoe spent all his time listening to his records and caring for Kinu. I knew that he and Kinu would not talk about their children. Heizo was dead, and Kimi had disappeared. When Shinkichi saw Kimi and all her children, he was so stunned, he could not say anything. Kimi looked away. She was so ashamed. I felt ashamed too. I had been stubborn. I had never thought about how Kimi felt. But that was already twelve or more years ago. Kimi’s father did not know what to do; he went to the back of his house and sat under the giant mango tree and wept.
Kimi saw that eight children was too much. Kinu did not like the noise, and Kawagoe was too old. Naotaro insisted that she should come to New World. We were a big family, and her family would make us bigger. The past was forgotten. Naotaro could say that, but it was still a problem for Kimi. When she saw Kantaro, she turned red. We were all older now. Kantaro always said that he married me for great love. It could not be otherwise. Kimi made a choice too. It was a hard life in the north. Now she was a worn-looking mother with lines creeping from her sad eyes. And her hair was like mine—striped with strands of grey. Now Kimi was tough, but not tough like me. I guess she could never be tough like me. Everyone noticed her callused hands, and we wondered if she still remembered how to play the piano.
It was a great shock for Kantaro to see Hachiro Yōgu. Yōgu was like another child, staring around blankly. He seemed to be staring at something inside his head. We wondered if Yōgu could hear; maybe not. He did not respond to any questions, and he did not speak. The only thing we recognized about him was his old habit of spitting; this alone had not changed. Everything about Yōgu was completely different. Suddenly he was dependent, childlike, and silent. Gone was the old Yōgu, the fiery, blustering, angry pistoleiro. Someone remembered that my father had to take Yōgu’s guns and knives away and tame him when he first came to Esperança. They laughed, “If only Okumura had known. All he had to do was to hit him on the head!”
Brazil-Maru Page 13