Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  Of course, I’m not saying that Haru did everything. There was always plenty of work to go around, and no one woman could handle the kitchen and the washing and cleaning by herself. But when I think back about my wife, I know she did some one thing for each of us that touched us in a special and individual way. In a commune where everyone got the same treatment, the same food, the same clothing, Haru treated each of us, not just me, in some singular way. I know Haru’s way was usually brusque and heavy-handed, but she was never too busy to forget. I shared Haru with everyone. Because of this, I lost Haru for myself. Maybe it was selfish of me to need a woman for myself, but I did.

  Although all of my people knew that Haru was gone, I myself never did. Even today, Haru denies that it happened. What am I to believe? In fact, I had left Esperança the same morning, not waiting to see the Kawagoes leave, not caring to confront Hachiro Yōgu again, still plagued by the smallest hope that I would return to São Paulo and find Natsuko, still certain that I would encounter the solution to bring us out from under the dark shadow of the bank. What I encountered on this trip to São Paulo was the unexpected shame of meeting our founder, Momose-sensei. Momose had become rather famous internationally as a Japanese Christian evangelist. He had survived the war in prison and had now come to Brazil to see how his brethren had fared in Esperança and to talk of larger issues—the war, the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his campaign for world peace.

  Still searching for Natsuko, I followed the crowd of people into a small church to hear Momose-sensei speak. I had met Momose-sensei only once many years ago when he had come to Esperança and made his famous speech telling the colonists, “Make men rather than coffee.” This was his way of saying that men were more important than the harvest of coffee for profit. When anyone ever talked about Momose, this is the famous line they always remembered. It was my father, Naotaro Uno, who had known Momose and followed his ministry. I wondered about this man who had inspired so many people to settle in Esperança and yet had spent most of his life in Japan. What could this man say to me who followed his very words and still struggled with this destiny? But as I listened to the evangelist, suddenly his words began to make sense to me; I was led back to the roots of my faith and my belief, and I stood up and confessed in a tearful moment of rebirth. The people who sat there and saw my redemptive moment were also moved to tears; they all left spreading the word that I had repented and changed. They had seen it happen. A new Kantaro Uno was born.

  On that same day, a well-to-do businessman from São Paulo named Taro Ōshima from also repented and found a new life, and the evangelist, given heavenly intuition, bound before a crowd of witnesses Ōshima’s fate and my fate into one. “You, Ōshima-san, who have until today only thought of your own material welfare and you, Kantaro Uno, who have been lead astray by physical passion, are now bound in a higher love, the love of God. I command you, Ōshima-san, to give sustenance to this man, now so broken in spirit, and you, Uno-san, to receive this sustenance as God’s love for you.”

  Meanwhile, back in Esperança, a new drama was brewing. Umpei Sawada had come to the commune with an entrepreneur by the name of José Santos. The two men walked around the commune escorted by Befu. As usual, Ichiro was asked to come along as an interpreter for Santos. “What is this thing you’ve got going here? Communism, isn’t it?” Santos asked plainly, fingering the strap on his camera.

  “If that’s what you want to call it, but it’s simply the way we’ve chosen to live,” Ichiro answered.

  “Well, I don’t believe in it, frankly. Where’s the incentive to work in a situation like this? No. No. You ought to release these people and put them back in the workforce.” Santos stepped back and snapped a long shot of our sawmill.

  “We have a long history,” Ichiro countered. “We are a very productive operation. We started this from scratch and created everything you see here today.”

  Santos checked the focus on his camera and said, “Yes, but the books say you’re up to your neck in debt. Poor management, I say.”

  To this Ichiro said nothing. By now, people all over Esperança were talking about the things they knew, the things they had heard. After the Kawagoes left, other families came to their own conclusions and decided to leave. I saw these foolish ones leave without money and without a destination—no plot of land upon which to make a new beginning, no promise of work. But if they wanted to leave, I didn’t stop them. They were free to leave. We let them go with the few belongings they were entitled to. Most of these people had relatives who would take them on for a while anyway. The rest, who had nowhere to turn and would have been ashamed to beg for charity, stayed. Of course it took some courage to leave, but it would have taken greater courage to stay and fight with me.

  Santos turned to the banker. “Sawada, I don’t know about this. If I were to take this operation over, first off, I’d trim the workforce. It’s not necessary to have all these people. I couldn’t possibly pay them all. Right now, maybe a family or two. Maybe, in time, the operation could be expanded, and we could call some of them back, but initially, we need to cut costs. All these people have got to go.”

  Trim the workforce? These people have got to go? Befu was in shock. The blood drained from his dark features. “What do you mean by bringing this—” Befu sputtered, “this foreigner here!” Befu attacked Sawada in Japanese. “This is not a simple business operation for profit! It is a way of life! It is a great human experiment! How can you assume to take over such a thing?” All the while, Santos continued to snap pictures of everything—our chickens, our houses, our barns, our equipment, everything—as if it were mere property, things he could later examine at leisure, things to buy and sell.

  Sawada calmly took out a cigarette and offered it to Santos. “The bank has done everything possible to try to help, to make the present decision unnecessary. But Kantaro and you people have broken our trust too many times. We can no longer harbor Kantaro’s debt. We tried with Shiozawa to forestall this situation, to try to put your operation on stable ground, but everything we’ve tried has failed. Now we can no longer afford the risk. We have other honest and trustworthy clients to attend to. The bank is not in the business of great human experiments. You have brought this situation upon yourselves. Think about it. You have treated my people, my lawyers, and Shiozawa—a very good man—with scorn, as if we were the enemy. When everything is turned over to this man, you will see how good the bank has been to you.” Sawada blew smoke from the side of his mouth and sneered.

  Befu glared at Sawada. “Kantaro will not stand for this. You will see. We will fight this until death.” Befu turned and walked away angrily.

  Santos turned to Ichiro, “Now what did they say?”

  I imagine Ichiro looking around helplessly. “Befu said that no decision could be made without Kantaro.”

  “Kantaro? Your leader? Ah yes, well, we will have to work out the final plans, but of course, I will want my own managers. All this talk about Kantaro. I read an article about him. The King of Eggs, isn’t he? Well, he may know something about eggs, but as far as business organization—” Santos shook his head. “It’s beyond me how all of you can work for this man for nothing.”

  The idea that José Santos could take over New World Ranch was so appalling no one really believed it could happen. My solution had always been to buy time, to stall our creditors, to march forward boldly with new projects, to talk big and broadly, to speak of our history and the productivity of our great enterprise. Someone with a heart, someone with a sense of history, someone with ideals would understand our plight and save us.

  In São Paulo, I found such a person in Taro Ōshima. Ōshima had had some luck in the scrap metal business. He had started a modest business with a small truck and, in the beginning, had done all the work himself, collecting and hauling scrap metal and turning all of it into a good profit. In time, Ōshima had several trucks and employees and was well known and respected in the business. Ōshima was a modest man with
a kind heart. He alone had stood up when the evangelist had asked the question, “Who in God’s name will answer His calling? Who has seen the light and is cleansed by His message?” Ōshima, who had not given much thought to the question of God and religion, suddenly felt moved to answer.

  In the beginning, people were cautious about my transformation, looking at me askance, talking behind my back, scorning my love affair, sneering at my great debt. No one was willing to take the first step toward welcoming me back, but on the other hand, I was openly welcomed into the Ōshima household. I had dinner with the Ōshimas, played with their children, talked of my own family and how the Ōshimas must come to visit Esperança. The Ōshimas became a place of refuge.

  But I could not help speaking of my ideas, my projects, my plans for the future, and Ōshimas was a kind and inspired listener. It was not long before I had caught Taro Ōshima’s imagination with the egg business. “I know what everyone is saying,” I pushed aside the gossip. “Well, I have been to the bottom and can go no further. I have more than paid for my sins, Ōshima-san. Now, I have been blessed with a new life. God sent you with a purpose in mind—to tell me that these dreams are not idle, that they must go on, that they must become reality. This dream is not a bad dream. How can it be a bad dream to work and live together on the land, to make the land produce and to give back to the land what we have taken, to find happiness from a simple life, to create a new civilization of strong and Christian people? I have been foolish and sinful, but the dream itself—it is not a bad one.”

  Ōshima nodded.

  “You are a godsend, Ōshima-san. You alone, out of all these people, believe. Will you help me? Help me to do the work I have not finished?”

  Ōshima was moved by my plea. He converted his trucks to carry eggs and built a warehouse to house our shipments. Once again Ichiro began to haul shipments into the city and to leave them with Ōshima. By the end of the year, Ōshima had converted his entire enterprise to selling and shipping eggs.

  Meanwhile, the bank’s negotiations with José Santos dragged on for many months. I argued with Sawada over the bank’s choice of José Santos, but Sawada said coldly, “Up to now, he’s the only one who’s shown any interest. You don’t think anyone in the colony would take you on with what they know, do you?” Sawada laughed.

  I then went to see José Santos and tried to convince him to come to some agreement in which he and I might work jointly. “We are already starting to recuperate our losses,” I spoke earnestly. “My partner in São Paulo, Taro Ōshima, perhaps you’ve heard of him. He has a lot of money, and a good business mind. He will guarantee my participation in a business deal with you.”

  Santos listened but would come to no decision. “My deal is with the bank. There just seems to be too many people involved in this thing, too complicated for my tastes. Really, if you could deliver this thing with only a couple of families, I might consider it right away,” Santos admitted. “Well, I have some other matters to take care of first, then I’ll settle my mind on this.”

  The idea that such a man might soon have legal rights to our land and operation was a chilling one. Somehow, I had to find someone to replace José Santos. Taro Ōshima did not have the fabulous means to buy the bank’s offer, but perhaps, I thought, if there were two such financiers.

  Ichiro drove me over to see the Baiano, and as usual, he was my interpreter. The Baiano and Maria das Dores had an enormous house on a ridge overlooking the rolling landscape of their great ranch. If the Baiano had once pressed his claim on this land with brute force, everything now had the settled appearance of a well-kept sprawling hacienda owned by distinguished country gentry. Gone were the jagunços and the old unlawful ways. The Baiano met us out on his spacious porch. We were served tall glasses of cool passion-fruit juice and large wedges of watermelon. A gracious warmth radiated from his household. The Baiano listened carefully and shook his head sadly when I described our troubles and José Santos’s plans to buy out our debt from the Nibras Bank and dismantle us. “We are finished,” I said tragically. “This is the end. What am I to do? The children—where will they go? We will have no place.” My eyes watered.

  “No,” the Baiano said, controlling the rising emotion in his own voice. “We must find a way. I will personally see to this. I owe it to the memory of Okumura. What is it that you need?”

  “We are starting to want for food in the kitchen. What am I to tell the women? Let the children go hungry? Our credit has been cut off everywhere. We don’t have the cash to pay. The bank has passed the word all around that my name means nothing.”

  “Use my credit at the old Turk’s. I will talk to Abdala myself. Get what you need for the children. You and I, we will arrange a partnership, and we will make it work. You can use my name, my credit. What do you have to offer?”

  “We have made a good beginning with a wealthy businessman in São Paulo, Taro Ōshima. He is distributing our eggs. He will guarantee everything for us,” I said eagerly. “I can pay you back everything. Everything,” I promised.

  “This is good. This is good. Yes. If you can get that São Paulo man—Ōshima, did you say? If you can get him to agree, maybe we can remove this Santos from the picture.”

  And so an arrangement of sorts was made. The Baiano and I talked until it was dark, exchanging ideas, creating a great project, a great plan full of great promises. I had found a Brazilian who matched my sense of vision and moving history. He spoke with much excitement. “Now Okumura once said an interesting thing,” he said. “He said that the cooperative had to be careful to sponsor new projects all the time, that you can’t just stick to one idea. It’s dangerous to produce just one product. You have to have something to fall back on or to move on to. I think you ought to think about diversifying your plant, Kantaro.”

  “I have been thinking along the same lines,” I replied. “You know, we have a strain of watermelon that will beat anyone’s.”

  “Is that right?”

  And so the talk went, creating a continuing plan that only grew bigger and better with time. As we drove back home that evening, I settled contentedly back into the seat of the truck and sighed. “Yes,” I nodded. “The Baiano is going to save us.”

  Ichiro was silent. To the Baiano, everything rang clear and true, but Ichiro thought he had heard it all before and that he knew things the Baiano did not know. So he felt sadness in the Baiano’s obvious pleasure and exuberance over my ideas. Maybe he remembered his brother Kōichi, still in prison for burning the Tanaka silk barn. He had once felt the same joy the Baiano felt; where had it all gone? But I was too preoccupied to see his loss of joy, and I did not notice when Ichiro faltered in his love for me.

  In the beginning, it did seem that this new arrangement would pull us out of the bank’s tightfisted grasp, and perhaps even Sawada had thought that we could make a comeback to pay our debts. The pressure to dump New World Ranch on some entrepreneur like José Santos receded momentarily, and the Baiano went to court and pleaded our case before numerous small creditors. The Baiano turned out to be a man of great passion, and he had come to believe fervently in our cause. He spoke eloquently and passionately for us. “These aren’t the people we should be punishing,” the Baiano declared. “Judge, we must give these people time. They are honest people, and they have made a statement declaring that they want to make good their debts. I myself have entered into an agreement with them, and I can pledge my own home and property on their goodwill!”

  Ichiro’s trips back and forth to São Paulo began once again with the old frequency. I would myself get him out of bed. “Before we go, I want to stop at the Baiano’s,” I would announce.

  It was usually so early in the morning that the Baiano was still in bed. “Send him in, Dorinha. Send him in!” the Baiano would yell from his room.

  I would stride into the bedroom as the Baiano was awkwardly propping himself up. Maria das Dores would serve us each a cup of coffee, and the Baiano would stir his sugar in slowly while I anno
unced, “Here is a check from Taro Ōshima for our last shipment. Please add it to our account.”

  The Baiano looked over the check. “Not bad. We’re in business, I see.”

  “There will be more. Ichiro and I are going to the city today with a shipment,” I said, adding, “I am going to see the American representative for the New Hampshire chicken breed. I think this is our chance. Befu is depending on this. I will need money to put down the initial deposit to show we are serious. Then there is that new generator we need.”

  “This check won’t clear for at least a week. I don’t know if we’ve the immediate funds,” the Baiano hedged.

  “No problem,” I answered. “You make a check out to Taro Ōshima, and he will endorse it for me. It’s all in the same family. Ōshima is rich; he can wait for his money to come back to him. Besides, I can get a better deal if I handle this in cash.”

  So I left Esperança with a check signed by the Baiano to Taro Ōshima for a blank amount of money. On the other end, Taro Ōshima filled in some amount, endorsed the Baiano’s check, and I cashed it in for money. When the crisp feel of cash touched my hands, I confess it was difficult not to find immediate ways to spend this money.

  I ran off to Miyasaka’s for a good meal and some idle talk with Mama Miyasaka. “So Kantaro, it’s been a long time,” Mama Miyasaka said coyly.

  I nodded. “How has business been?”

  “Not so bad. Papa came down with something, and he was in bed for a week. Now he’s better. Back upstairs again.”