“What are those? Where are they from?” he said sharply.
“The lake,” she whispered. She was too afraid not to answer him truthfully even though she knew he would get mad.
“Slocan Lake? That place stupid.” He kicked the stones and they went flying across the floor and into the thin wall.
A voice from the other side immediately protested. “Urusai! What’s going on over there!”
“Nothing, everything okay,” her father shouted back. He turned to her and hissed, “See, don’t make trouble. Get rid of those.”
She gathered up the scattered stones and went outside, pretending to throw them away. But she knew she would not, could not. She wrapped them in her handkerchief to hide again later.
8
The sight of Aya cowering on the ground during the hygiene spraying brought out a feeling of pity in Fumi that caught her off guard. It reminded her of what she had seen during wartime bombings when she’d watched the people around her run for cover. They dove into bomb shelters and fell to the floor, flung themselves down and flattened every part of their bodies so that even the tips of their ears and the ridges on their spines seemed to bend inward, making them small and smaller still. She’d seen people trip and fall because they were running too fast or because they were pushed over by others in a bigger hurry to get away.
When the bombing escalated, Fumi and all the children in her school were evacuated to the countryside. But by then she’d seen enough. She’d seen grown-ups crying. She’d seen how fear made big sturdy adults shrink to the size of mice.
Aya’s reaction also reminded Fumi of how as a small child she used to run after her older sister whenever she felt abandoned. As soon as she sensed that Sumiko had left her side, she would run down the lane as fast as her tiny legs could take her. Usually she was crying, and she would trip and fall flat on her face. Always Sumiko turned around, picked her up off the ground, and wiped away her tears. Then she would let Fumi climb on her back and she would take her to school or to the market or wherever she happened to be going. Even when Fumi knew she was getting too big to be indulged this way, she never questioned that Sumiko would take care of her.
Fumi started feeling sorry for herself. Then she thought about how Aya had fallen and didn’t have anyone to pick her up except the teacher. She felt sorry for Aya, and then she felt very guilty.
Aya wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Because they were seatmates, Aya had begun asking Fumi questions during class. Although her Japanese did not sound quite like theirs—she had a funny accent and used old-fashioned words—you could understand her if you listened carefully. And she was getting better. Actually Fumi was surprised at how much Aya understood and how well she spoke, even if she didn’t always know the right word for something. Aya was too shy to speak in front of others, though, so the only one who really knew what she sounded like was Fumi. So Fumi had good reason to feel guilty, for she was the one responsible for starting the worst rumors. She told herself that the other girls were at fault, too. After all, they had encouraged Fumi and egged her on, plying her with question after question, laughing harder and harder the meaner the remark. Hadn’t they almost forced her to make things up? Fumi said that Aya gave off a funny smell, a sour foreign stink, and that her hair was not thick and black like theirs but thin and, in the strong sunlight, looked as brown as cold barley tea. Aya didn’t know how to do a single thing—just imagine having to babysit someone like that all day long, she’d said. The others nodded sympathetically and giggled.
She knew it was wrong, but she’d been desperate to make the other girls laugh. If she kept them entertained, not only would they like her more but they wouldn’t have time to ask about her family. More than once Tomoko had inquired if it was true that her sister had left home. Someone else had used the word panpan, not directly about Sumiko, not exactly, but Fumi could tell the girl was sniffing for clues. It was nobody’s business, but when someone asked you a question you didn’t want to answer, it was very awkward.
What was it that Kondo Sensei had said when he made Aya her seatmate? It will be your responsibility to look after your new seatmate. Take care of her. Make sure she knows what to do. At the time, Fumi had considered it a form of punishment but now she wondered if she was missing an important sign. There was a reason for everything even if she didn’t always know what it was.
When she’d led Aya from the school yard, it was something she had done out of instinct and pity, and the feel of Aya’s hand had been unexpectedly warm. Aya had clutched Fumi’s hand like a child.
Take care of her. Fumi thought about Kondo Sensei’s words. Well, maybe it wasn’t so hard.
Maybe they could even help each other.
Maybe, Fumi thought, she might even be able to show Aya what she dared not show anyone else.
9
Tokyo was hot, dusty, and dirty, but Matt had discovered an oasis only a few blocks from his building: a large public park called Hibiya Park. It was so popular that, especially on Sundays, it felt as if half the city turned out to stroll, sit on the benches, or have picnics on the grass. There were mothers with babies, toddlers learning how to walk, grandparents who shuffled along inch by inch. Young women in colorful dresses stood in the middle of the open lawn, twirling their white parasols around and around. GIs, many in uniform, were also out in large numbers, sauntering alone or in groups, cameras slung around their necks. And then there were the couples. The Japanese couples walked shyly side by side, never touching, but the GIs always held hands with their Japanese girlfriends. In Hibiya Park the sight was so commonplace nobody gave them a second glance anymore. They strolled across the wide lawn with the nonchalance and happiness of couples anywhere. Here, it was possible and right to fall in love. Here, everything felt normal. Somewhere else in the city, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials continued and people held protest rallies against the rising cost of rice, but in this tranquil sanctuary, the promise of romance and happiness held sway.
Matt even had his favorite bench. It was next to an old pine tree whose main bough was supported by a thick post, like a crutch under an old man’s arm. A small sign posted at the base of the tree explained that it was three hundred years old. Matt loved to look at the dark gnarled trunk covered with knobs and bumps. It had seen a lot, this tree. It had survived earthquakes and fires, it had survived more than one war. And yet miraculously it still stood, not as tall as before, not as strong perhaps, but upright—proud and determined and undefeated. The tree reminded him of a lot of older Japanese he’d seen, some so bent over they looked frozen into the action of planting rice. They were survivors, just as this pine tree was a survivor.
Matt sat down on his bench, leaned back, and closed his eyes.
A second later a little boy ran up, tapped him on the pant leg, and yelled, “Mr. Soldier!” Just as quickly, he scurried away. It happened a lot. Children who called out “Haro, haro” or “Gimme chocoretto” when they saw him in uniform. It embarrassed Matt to be so conspicuous. If Henry, his big brother, were here, he would have known just how to behave, how to play the role of a true American soldier. He would have laughed and played with the kids. He would have tossed gum in the air and made the children run for it. He would have reveled in his role as a GI in Japan. Henry was that kind of guy.
In the mirror, Matt would sometimes find himself unconsciously looking for Henry in his own facial features, seeking a brotherly resemblance. But he hadn’t grown up to resemble Henry at all, not physically or in other ways. Matt was the bookish one, the boy who studied hard, who didn’t mind having to go to Japanese school after his regular classes. Henry by contrast had hated school. He was athletic, full of confidence in his body and his strength. He was outgoing, genial, guileless.
Henry, whose Japanese name was Hiro. When Matt was small, he thought his older brother’s name was Hero. Every time he heard his mother call out, “Hiro-chan, doko na no?,” Matt would hear “Hero-chan! Where’s my hero?” He remembered being so jealous. He w
ould have given anything to be called a hero by his mother.
When Henry got older, though, he told his parents never to call him Hiro. He said he wouldn’t respond. “It sounds like Hirohito,” he complained to Matt. “I hate it.” He was Henry and only Henry.
Henry, who was so full of life. He was one of the first in their camp to sign up as soon as Japanese Americans were allowed to serve. He was one of the first to attend basic training, one of the first to be shipped out to the battlefields of Europe with the 442nd. “It’s the only way to show we’re on the right side,” he told their parents. “How else are we going to prove our loyalty? We have to do something. We have to fight.”
They received three letters from him before his death. The first two were while he was still in boot camp. The last one came from somewhere in Europe. He couldn’t reveal any details about where he was or what he was doing, so the letter had a tantalizing quality, a feeling of mystery behind his mundane accounts. It was raining a lot, he wrote. He hadn’t seen so much rain in his whole life. The bread was hard and chewy. He was fine. He missed all of them.
Matt had often tried to picture his brother’s last moments in that dark wet place somewhere in the war fields of Europe. The conditions had been terrible—a densely wooded forest and fog as thick as soup. A rifle hidden behind every tree. Henry would have been crawling on his stomach, inching his way forward on his elbows, unable to see beyond the tip of his nose. What had he been thinking about in those last cold moments just before he lost his life?
When Matt decided to enlist, his mother begged him not to throw away his life as his brother had. As it turned out, however, a childhood knee injury disqualified Matt from active service and the army wanted him for Intelligence instead. His Japanese skills were good, and to make them even better, he was sent to study for eight months at one of the army’s language training schools. By the time he finished, the war was over. He was privately relieved and then ashamed about just how relieved he felt. When the opportunity to serve in the Occupation arose, he leaped at it.
Matt must have fallen asleep on the bench. When he opened his eyes, there seemed to be more people than ever: families reclining on straw mats, children chasing each other around in circles, couples strolling slowly across the grass. When you took in a scene like this, he thought, never in a million years could you imagine anyone ever going to war. Directly in front of him, an old man suddenly pointed his cane in the air, and his gray-haired wife gazed up at the sky, squinting. Matt looked, too, but saw nothing. Just sky. Beautiful clear blue sky.
He stood up and walked to the park exit. As he passed through the wrought-iron gates, a family of five was just coming in. A father, mother, and three school-age daughters entered in single file, like a row of ducklings.
The war amputees sat outside the gate, as if by some understanding that it was not appropriate for them to intrude upon the bucolic atmosphere of the park. They formed long rows flanking either side of the entrance, some sitting on straw mats or pieces of cardboard, others directly on the ground. They had tin mugs or plates in front of them, and a few had handwritten signs that they held in their laps or placed next to their mugs. Many wore their old army uniforms—“defeat uniforms,” Matt had heard them called. Young people, especially, thought nothing of mocking the now unfashionable reminders of the past.
The men sat in silence—nobody begged—letting their scars and missing limbs speak for them. People passed but hardly anyone stopped.
The war veterans were everywhere you looked in the city. The first time he saw them, Matt had felt a confusing mixture of emotions: anger and anguish, disgust and pity, contempt and sorrow. He didn’t know how he felt—how he was supposed to feel. As former soldiers, they represented the enemy, and he’d hated the Japanese for bombing Pearl Harbor. If there’d been no Pearl Harbor, America would never have joined the war. Henry would never have died. There would never have been camps like Manzanar, Heart Mountain, Minidoka, Tule Lake. All the people he knew and loved wouldn’t have been forced into bitter factions, some still not talking to each other. They could have fought over normal things like how late you could stay out on a school night or what kind of things you should spend your pocket money on. Not on how to answer a loyalty oath. Were you a no-no boy or a yes-yes boy? Would you fight to the death? Did you love your country? Oh and by the way, which country was that again?
But the day Matt witnessed a one-legged war veteran being robbed by a gang of young boys, his feelings were suddenly, irrevocably, clarified. The man was standing by himself in front of a bombed-out building on a busy street. He had wooden crutches under each armpit, and his finger was hooked tightly through the handle of his army cup. Every few minutes he shook the cup. On one side his pant leg was pinned up almost to the groin, yet his posture was straight and rigid, as if to say one didn’t need two legs to stand at full attention.
The four street urchins who attacked him were so small they couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. They knocked the man to the ground, kicked his crutches, and picked up the money that had spilled from his begging cup. As they ran away laughing, they nearly bumped into several passersby, but nobody made any attempt to catch them. The man had groaned and tried to right himself, but without his crutches he was helpless. Matt was about to go over and offer assistance when two young men rushed out of a neighboring building, lifted the man under the arms, and helped him over to a stoop where he could sit.
After that, Matt made it a point to give money whenever he could. It was not a question of pity. These were men. They deserved dignity. Former soldiers, on both sides, had been through something that no one should have been forced to endure. To have mercy was only human; to give was simply the right thing to do. Initially, Matt thought he would select the most disabled man and give him the most money, but he soon discovered how absurd this notion was. For how could he measure one injury against another? Was one leg lost worth more than an arm? Two legs? An arm and a leg? No, if he was going to give, he would give to everyone, spreading his generosity as evenly as he could.
Approaching the long line of men who stood outside the park gate, he reached into his pocket. Along with his army scrip, he always carried some Japanese yen. Inflation was terrible, and it was hard to keep track of how much it was worth. All he knew was that you needed a thick handful of the stuff to buy anything useful. Still, it was better than nothing. He went from one person to the next, stuffing a few pieces of the paper money in each cup. He made it a practice never to look at anyone’s face.
By the time he got to the last man in the line, he had run out of all the yen he had. The only thing he could put in the man’s cup were two cubes of chocolate that he found in his shirt pocket. They felt soft to the touch, half melted from the heat.
“Arigato gozaimasu. Goshinsetsu ni. Thank you for your kindness.” The man bowed his head so low his forehead almost touched his tin mug. When he returned to an upright position, Matt noticed his regal bearing. He sat with his legs tucked under him, the way a Zen monk sat for meditation, his back ramrod straight and his head so steady you could balance a book on it.
The man was blind. His face was pointed straight ahead into space, but where his eyes should have been were two sunken holes. Matt wondered why the man did not wear sunglasses. Was it because he did not have the money to buy them? Or was choosing not to hide behind dark glasses a deliberate act of defiance? He had a strong chiseled jaw and high cheekbones, well-defined full lips. They looked almost sensual. He might, at one point in his life, have been very handsome.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money. What I gave you was some chocolate.”
“Oh, thank you kindly, sir. Chocoretto, that’s a special treat for sure.” The man bowed again, holding his head down for several seconds to show his gratitude.
He was wearing his military uniform which, while badly frayed at the cuffs and along the seams, was clean and clearly worn with pride. The original black dye in the material had been bl
eached out by sunlight and scrubbing so all that was left was a dull blotchy grayness. Matt couldn’t take his eyes off him. Anyway, the man couldn’t see him.
“You served valiantly in the war.” Matt felt he had to say something. Normally he never talked to war veterans; he didn’t want to risk getting into an argument about the war or raising bad feelings. He didn’t know why he felt drawn to talk to this man. Perhaps it had something to do with the cloak of invisibility the man’s blindness had bestowed on him.
“I had the great honor to serve my country.” The man bowed again. “But I am afraid I was not worthy.”
“I am sure you served very bravely.”
“No, sir. I had great fear. It is very shameful.”
“We all suffer fear at one time or another. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“My fear was shameful, very shameful. But there is something even more shameful—I survived.”
“Don’t say that.” Matt spoke more sharply than he meant to.
“Everyone in my unit perished, except me. There is no greater shame.”
Matt gazed at the man’s face and felt a chill, as if even without eyes, the man was able to stare back at him. He took a deep breath before speaking. “I am a soldier, too.”
“It is always nice to meet a fellow veteran, sir.”
Matt hoped the man wouldn’t ask for details and would simply continue to think Matt was Japanese. Someone from the countryside with a thick dialect, a funny accent. Tokyo was full of demobilized soldiers who either didn’t want to go home or had no home to go back to. Even now shiploads of them still arrived from everywhere the Japanese empire had once stretched.
The man bowed again in his stiff formal way. “Thank you for your kindness. I am sorry that this worthless being is such a bother.”
“Is there anything special you need?” Matt suddenly asked.
The Translation of Love Page 6