Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  It’s a wonder how we all got fed in those days. We used up Tanaka’s rice pretty quickly. Then the cooperative sent us donations, and Kantaro’s newspaper friend Kasai sent us more, which we also used up. Then there was the time when “the others” came around with a truckload of the stuff we left behind and a lot of food to share. It must have been Ichiro Terada who drove the truck over. Kantaro went out to where they were unloading the truck. There were clothes and tools and sacks of food and Haru’s sewing machine. Kantaro looked at everything and began screaming and kicking everything and yelling for them to take it away. “We don’t want your charity!” he screamed. “We don’t need you! Take it all back! We don’t want it!” They started to put everything back in the truck, but Haru ran out from the kitchen and yelled at Kantaro, “Uno-san! Go eat your dinner!” I don’t know why, but Kantaro went in to eat his dinner, and while he was inside eating, Haru got the stuff off the truck again and hauled it off somewhere.

  Jiro and some others started planting stuff on Tanaka’s land, and every day, anyone who could work went and hired out as daily labor. Even Kantaro and I had to go out and work in the beginning. We had to weed, hoe, plant, harvest, whatever work we could get. Mostly it was weeding, which I hated. When I complained, my old man said something about weeding being the most important work you do on the land. I thought that if weeds were stronger, they should win out, and we should find a way to eat them. We seemed to be eating everything else: sweet potato leaves, pumpkin flowers, mulberry tea.

  Haru said that it was a good thing that Kantaro went out and weeded every day—when he came back at night, he was too tired to complain about anything, too tired to throw a tantrum or something. But me, I could never sleep at night, so sometimes Ritsu had to leave me behind because she couldn’t get me up at dawn. After a while everyone thought it was better if I didn’t come along because I was so slow or fell asleep in the fields and someone would have to search around to find me every night. Someone said that if Ritsu wanted to bring me out, she should bring me in a basket like she used to. At least, it would be easier to find me at night.

  So I started to get left behind with the little kids and the old people. The little kids ran around and played in the mulberries, and the old people just slept most of the time. The old people were my grandparents Waka and Naotaro. Both of them were weak and sick. I think that only one of them was really sick, and the other decided to be sick just to provide company. I could never really tell. Sometimes I suspected Grandma Waka, and sometimes I suspected Grandpa Naotaro. Haru stayed behind to take care of them. She hung some white sheets up in a corner of the barn to partition off their area. She would come and go with food and medicine and bedpans. She came and washed them in the morning. She gave Naotaro a shave and combed Waka’s hair. She fed them both soft food with a spoon. She changed their dirty bedclothes. She did everything like they were babies. And they would just lie there side by side in their bed. The reason why I think that one or the other or neither was really sick was because when Haru left and they thought they were alone, I could hear them talk and even laugh. They said, “Poor Haru, she works so hard.” They talked about everything, about the past, about some memory or dream they had both had. I know this sounds strange, but they really talked about their dreams as if they both dreamed the same dream. They were like two peas in a pod or two worms on a leaf.

  You might hear someone ask about those old ones behind the white sheets, and Haru would shake her head. “Every day they eat less and less. Well, it’s old age.” Haru tried every sort of remedy on my grandparents. She was always boiling those stinking teas. She made me swallow something every day because she said I was skinny. Then there was this other thing she made me take for my mind. She said it was genius medicine. She made those poor old people sip the same nasty stuff—I bet Haru finished them off by poisoning them. There was this tea she made out of mulberry leaves. I think she invented this mulberry tea because that’s all there was out there. It really finished the old ones off. You could hear them complain when she went away.

  “What was that stuff?”

  “Tea.”

  “Yada yada.”

  Well, maybe they weren’t poisoned. They were probably starved. The reason I think this is because they always talked about a number of something before Haru came in with their soup. I could hear them say, “Today, twelve.”

  “Are you sure? Yesterday was twelve.”

  “I’m sure, but does it matter?”

  Then the next day, it would be eleven or twelve again, but usually the numbers got smaller. Finally, it got down to one. Just one every day. I never knew what these numbers meant until I heard Haru say something about how the old ones would only take one sip of soup. By this time, it was too late. They could hardly move and hardly talk, they were so weak. When it was time for zero, they didn’t have to ask each other.

  All this time, I was drawing pictures on wrapping paper my mother saved. I started a picture of the mulberry grove. Since the Tanakas couldn’t use the mulberry leaves for silkworms, the bushes started to get berries, and the little kids spent all day picking and eating the berries. The stuff got smeared all over their faces in big purple patches. I got to thinking that I could make some paint out of this stuff. I grabbed a can of berries away from one of the kids and squished it up with my hands. I never got to paint with this because that little kid, Jun, started crying and his sister Yae started screaming at me and got the others to pelt me with the berries. They came around and threw berries at me until I was splotched with that purple juice. I ran after them and squished the stuff in their faces until Haru came out of the barn and got mad at us. She was standing there with her mulberry tea, screeching at us. Then she sort of sank down and started crying.

  I don’t know why, but I ran into the barn. I could see the white sheets still hanging around that corner of the barn. They seemed very still, stiller than usual, as if there was no breathing behind them. The old ones were behind there, wrapped up in more white sheets, a little drop of spittle in the corners of their mouths. They must have been dreaming the same dream—that they had both died.

  CHAPTER 17:

  Shiratori

  I have been thinking some more about my life in the basket. I remember some other things. I remember how it was dark in the basket but also how sometimes light might come through the straw in little patterns. I could watch the little patterns flicker and change, and there was always some prism of color around the edges. And I remember that there was a hole where I could peek out. I could maybe see some part of my mother bent over planting. Mostly I could see her feet and legs trudging about in the earth. Sometimes her feet would get mixed up with other feet. I don’t remember my old man Befu ever going out to do fieldwork; he was always with the chickens. So maybe it wasn’t his but someone else’s feet. I also remember that my own feet always went to sleep and grew so numb that I couldn’t feel them. When Ritsu took me out of the basket, I screamed in pain as my feet came back to life, little invisible knives stabbing everywhere. Ritsu would take my little feet and rub them and kiss them. I grew to like this rubbing and kissing so much that no matter whether my feet went to sleep or not, I always kicked and complained.

  It is amazing how much you can see with a little light through a tiny hole. Sometimes I think the inside of my head is the same way, dark like inside the basket, and I am looking out through two tiny holes.

  Just when Tanaka thought we might be staying forever, we left. But it had already been more than a year, maybe even two. The reason we got to leave was because of Mizuoka. The way I heard it, Haru’s father Okumura used to run everything in Esperança. He got gunned down by a death squad on the same night that that Terada brother burned Tanaka’s silkworm barn down. Anyway, after Okumura got killed, it took a few years, but Mizuoka finally came out of hiding. It wasn’t that Mizuoka was really hiding—although I bet a lot of people were in those days, thinking they might get knocked off by the death squad—it was that Mizuoka sp
ent all his time reading and studying his books or going into the forest to find Indians. Suddenly he stopped everything and came out to run Esperança and the cooperative and do the things that Okumura used to do. By this time, Mizuoka was an old man with no hair and a white mustache. It was Mizuoka’s idea to get us off Tanaka’s land. Someone said Mizuoka was Kantaro’s old teacher and had a lot of influence on Kantaro. Those two got to talking with my old man Befu about chickens and eggs and manure and that sort of thing, and it was as if Mizuoka was hearing all this for the first time, which maybe he was. Mizuoka got very excited and started to make all these plans. You could tell that Kantaro had hooked him good, so Kantaro tossed Tanaka away because Mizuoka was a bigger fish, with the cooperative behind him and all. Mizuoka found a way to buy a piece of our old land back for us; it wasn’t as big as before, but it was enough for us. Mizuoka got us a bunch of loans, and we built everything back together the way it used to be.

  The way I heard it, Mizuoka got our land back in the following way: An old couple named Kojima in Esperança were retiring; they decided to leave and go to São Paulo to live with their son. Mizuoka talked to them and got them to exchange their land with the Brazilian who had bought our land. The Brazilian thought he was too smart; he didn’t want to strike a deal with Kantaro. I think the Kojima land was better anyway. But the Kojimas got persuaded by Mizuoka that Kantaro was a new man, and besides, Mizuoka would guarantee the deal. So now Kantaro sends the Kojimas in São Paulo regular payments on their land, which must be a nice pension for an old retired couple.

  We didn’t all fly away from Tanaka’s silkworm barn at once. We left gradually, a few at a time. The first to leave got things started, building the kitchen and the dining hall back up. It went piece by piece like that. Maybe some people thought that when we split from the others that would be the end of Kantaro’s place. Kantaro says that you can’t kill great ideals, and this was one of them.

  I suppose Mizuoka thinks the same. You can always see his bald head over there talking with Kantaro and Befu about chickens and Esperança. He says that Kantaro can redeem himself by giving Esperança a future in chickens. Besides the land deal with the Kojimas, Mizuoka got us some big loans from the cooperative for incubators and chicken pens and feed and that sort of thing. Kantaro is not so angry and depressed as he used to be. He even seems in high spirits.

  Kantaro has not been in such a good way since old Momose came to Esperança. Momose, they say, founded Esperança, even though he had visited here only once or twice. That’s when people say Momose made his famous speech about how in Esperança growing people was more important than growing coffee. Anyway, Momose’s the one who traveled around Japan and made speeches and signed people up to come to Esperança. I don’t know what he told people, but it must have been pretty convincing. That’s how my grandparents, Naotaro and Waka came. They signed up with Momose in Japan. I don’t know how you can send people to a place you hardly even know yourself. Well, Momose must have wondered the same thing. He must have wondered how we were all getting along after all these years, so one year he finally made the trip himself. By this time, he was pretty old. We had to all go out and meet him and listen to his speeches, all the same stuff about growing people rather than coffee, even though we don’t hardly grow coffee anymore. Then there was a special service given at the cemetery. Then he came to Kantaro’s place to give another speech, and afterward, he and Kantaro talked a long time about everything.

  It took a while but Kantaro told him how he had sinned and everything. My old man Befu sat around and talked too. Kantaro cried and Momose nodded gravely. Then they talked about what Kantaro could do to make it better with God. They decided Kantaro could help poor Japanese students. They wrote this letter. It was a long letter about Kantaro’s place and our history and why young Japanese who had no future because of the war could come to Brazil and start a new life.

  My father would never admit that Japan had lost the war. They say he only accepted it after Okumura was killed, but even then he wouldn’t talk of it. I myself was surprised to hear Momose tell us that Japan had lost the war.

  So then who should turn up but a poor Japanese art student with no future in Japan. His name is Junichiro Shiratori, and he came with a copy of Kantaro’s letter in his hand and another from Momose saying that this man was answering Kantaro’s call. Shiratori is only a couple of years older than I, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. He is rather tall and thin, and his shoulders seem to fold forward like wings that don’t work. Shiratori said that all his older brothers were killed in the war. They came home in little boxes. Shiratori said he tried to leave Japan before. He got on a ship to America as a stowaway two times and got caught both times. He said he left Hokkaido and went to Tokyo and Yokohama and stuck around the American bases. I heard that Americans drive in big shiny cars and chew bubble gum.

  This Shiratori wants to teach everyone to paint, even the old aunties and uncles. Even my old man sat down the other night to try to draw. Shiratori told Kantaro that everyone should try to develop their natural talents. He said that life and art must be the same. Ordinary people can be a part of art. Art was not something special or separate, it was a part of life. Kantaro agreed. He even agreed to waste all this material. Haru and the other old aunties were showing their pictures and laughing about how they too might be geniuses like me. They told Haru they were going to take my genius medicine.

  Everyone was interested to know how well Kantaro could draw, and Shiratori said he did very well. Natural talent, Shiratori said. Life is art. Art is life.

  Mizuoka came by today. He had a letter to show Kantaro. This letter was from the Kojimas. It said that we haven’t paid them for three months now. Mizuoka looked worried, but Kantaro said not to worry. “Tell Kojima-san not to worry,” Kantaro said. Mizuoka said he would tell Kojima, and then he sat down with everyone to take Shiratori’s art class.

  After art class, all the aunties like to stick around and try to talk to Shiratori; they want to know this and that about Shiratori and which of their kids has natural talent. They say, “What about Kyoko?” or “What about Sachiko?” They don’t seem to care much about their boys, but they ask about their daughters.

  Shiratori is also trying to teach us Japanese reading and writing and a little history too. When he is busy doing this, some mother is always going into his room and cleaning it out or gathering his dirty clothing to wash. They wash and iron and fold everything and then send one of their daughters to take Shiratori’s wash to him when he is in his room. Or maybe they cook some special food they’ve heard he really misses or bake some special cake and take it over to him. I never saw such a fuss over any visitor. And the girls act silly around Shiratori. They don’t seem to care that he’s skinny or that his shoulders fold forward. I’m skinny, and my legs are bowed, but Shiratori is tall.

  After all the commotion over Shiratori’s clothing and that nonsense, it seems Shiratori has become attached to Kimi Yōgu. The other aunties are jealous, but they would not admit it; they all think Kimi Yōgu is too refined to live on a farm, even though she has been working on a farm most of her life. She’s just a worn-out old grandma like the rest of them. They talk behind her back about her old husband Hachiro Yōgu, who left her behind and became a traitor. I wonder what happened to him; he went crazy and almost killed Kantaro with a kitchen knife. I can still see him running across the table with the knife. That was a long time ago; I was maybe twelve. I ran around the dining hall to see what would happen when the knife went through Kantaro’s body, but it never happened.

  Kimi wasn’t one of those who sent her daughters to clean Shiratori’s room or bring him his clean and ironed clothing. Shiratori just heard Kimi playing the piano. He went to talk to her because she teaches some of the children to play the piano. They like to discuss what should be done about the education of the children at Kantaro’s place. They say there’s a law. The little kids have to go to Brazilian school. Some days they go. Some days they don’t
. Kantaro thinks this is a nuisance. Japanese is more important. Kimi and Shiratori are concentrating on this. So now you can mostly find Shiratori over at Kimi’s place, talking and eating and sitting around with Akiko and Kimi’s other kids. Now whenever Shiratori gets a chance, he wanders over to Kimi’s house. Sometimes he talks so late he ends up sleeping there among Kimi’s kids.

  I sometimes see Shiratori walking around at night. He and I are the only ones awake at such hours. I can see the light on in his room. I know he paints during the night. He doesn’t paint anything you can recognize, so he doesn’t need the light or a scene or a model. During the day, he sketches things like the barn or the side of a house or a field or something, but when he looks at his sketches again at night, he must see everything very differently. Everything is crooked or out of proportion; the colors are dirty. No one has seen these strange paintings. If Kantaro knew what Shiratori was using his canvas and oils for, he might not be so pleased. Everyone has seen the paintings Shiratori does during the day. Shiratori likes to paint the forest or our cornfield with the sky in several different tones of blue and purple. He likes to make the people and the buildings glow.