The Purple Heart

by Vincent Yee

  A sense of shock and realization then swelled within her as she looked down at the ring and up once more. “I’m his wife,” she said to herself. A sense of raw guilt then ate at her as she turned her head back imagining the main gate far off into the distance. Though she still believed that a husband should not leave his wife, it was also true that a wife would not let her husband go off to war without saying goodbye. Then a realization raced through her mind: “I’m late.”

  In that moment of clarity, Minami rushed down the barrack, frantically calling out Hiroshi’s name. She may have already missed him, and the burden of that possibility crushed her. She bolted out of the door, leaped over the steps, and raced to the main gate yelling Hiroshi’s name, hoping that maybe he could hear her. Block fifteen passed her on her left, then block ten and then block five. She turned right and headed toward the main gate. The sprint winded her, but her mind pushed her on as the urgency of the moment unleashed energy she never knew she had. She was closer and could make out a crowd of people, but her thoughts froze when she saw the gate closing. She was too late. But she saw the buses. They were not moving yet, and this gave her hope. She pushed herself harder and faster toward the gate, yelling Hiroshi’s name.

  Her piercing cries caught the attention of Mr. Ito, who looked left to see his daughter running over. He would recognize his daughter’s voice anywhere, but this time there was an unfamiliar desperation in her voice. Mrs. Ito saw her daughter as well and then looked at the bus. “She’s too late” she thought with alarm. She looked up at her husband and knew he was thinking the same thing, “Stop the bus!” Mr. Ito said, “I’ll talk to the soldiers, you get Minami.” Mrs. Ito nodded and went to her daughter.

  Mr. Satoh saw what was happening and immediately chased after Mr. Ito while the two mothers caught Minami, who ran at full throttle into their arms. She was panting, desperately trying to regain her breath when she blurted out, “Hiroshi?”

  The mothers looked at one another and Mrs. Ito said, “We said our goodbyes already. He was the last one to get on the bus. He was waiting for you.”

  Another torrent of guilt washed over her as she thought to herself, “What kind of wife am I for not saying goodbye to her husband going off to war?” Her body found renewed vigor as she pulled herself away from her mother and mother-in-law. She raced toward the fence yelling desperately Hiroshi’s name, hoping he would hear her. The buses were still sitting there.

  Minami flung herself into the fence. Her delicate fingers gripped the wire fencing and she yelled out Hiroshi’s name over and over again. But she was also tired and her voice didn’t carry as far as it normally would.

  Mr. Ito returned angrily to his wife and Mrs. Satoh, as the rest of the family stood behind them. Mr. Satoh was close behind. “The bastards, they won’t open the gate!” A disappointed look came over everyone’s faces and their dismay was noticed by other people in the crowd who realized what was going on as a chatter wormed its way through the crowd. “Hiroshi’s wife didn’t have a chance to say goodbye,” along with, “She’s too late.” People elicited gasps when they heard and their eyes trained on the slender woman at the fence, calling out to her husband.

  “No! No, no… come back, Hiroshi!” said Minami as she swayed her head from side to side to express her anguish. “Hiroshi! Hiroshi! Hiroshi!”

  The Itos and the Satohs looked helplessly at their daughter. She was too late. But Mr. Ito brushed aside that thought. He needed to try, for his daughter’s sake. He looked at everyone and then said, “We need to get his attention, and we need to think fast before the bus drives away.” Suddenly Yoshi shot both of his hands into the air and shouted, “Home run!”

  Mr. Ito put his son’s hands down and said, “Not now, Yoshi.” But Mrs. Ito suddenly looked at Yoshi, grabbed both of his arms and pulled Yoshi onto his tiptoes as he winced in pain. She looked excitedly at everyone and said, “Home run!” A moment of realization shot through everyone except for Mr. Ito, who looked entirely confused. Everyone then went to work and scattered among the crowd.

  Minami dug her forehead into the wire fencing and thought that maybe if she tried hard enough, she could squeeze right through it and run to the bus. But she couldn’t. She continued to yell out Hiroshi’s name desperately. Then her heart skipped a beat when the engines of the buses roared to life and rumbled steadily. “No! Hiroshi!” she yelled. There were three buses. The first bus began to roll off and the second bus followed. She looked desperately at the last bus and yelled out again, “Wait! Wait! Wait!” but then the last bus started to turn its wheels. “No! No! No! Hiroshi, don’t leave yet!” Minami’s insides crumbled as her eyes closed tightly shut as her voice trailed off, “No! No! no…”

  But then the last bus sputtered to a stop and the sound of shifting gears could be heard. Minami looked up. She saw a pair of shoes drop to the ground on the other side from underneath the bus. It ran to the end of the bus and Minami’s heart fluttered anew. The shoes stopped and they slowly walked around the corner. The man looked out to the crowd of people and then turned his head toward Minami. It was Hiroshi.

  Minami’s face suddenly flooded with excitement as she saw him. He first took a couple of guarded steps toward Minami. “Hiroshi!” shouted Minami with a yearning in her voice. Suddenly, Hiroshi was running at full speed toward her. He slammed into the fence as they desperately wove their fingers together through the heartless wire fencing. They pressed their bodies up against one another as their lips found each other’s. Minami’s lips were salty, but Hiroshi didn’t care as Minami muttered, “I’m sorry.”

  Hiroshi responded softly, “Don’t be, you’re here now.”

  “You heard me,” asked Minami.

  Hiroshi looked over to his left and saw the crowd of people, many of whom were weeping and said, “Actually no, but a wave caught my attention.”

  “I love you Hiroshi, I love you so much,” blurted out Minami.

  “I love you too. I promise I will take care of myself. I will write and before you’ll know it, I’ll be back.”

  “Do you promise to come back?” Minami knew that it was a futile question but she just needed to hear him say it.

  “I promise, I will always be in your heart,” said Hiroshi.

  “I’ll miss you,” said a tearful Minami.

  Hiroshi just admired the face of his beautiful young wife and looked deeply into her wondrous eyes. “I’m already missing you.”

  “Just come back safe,” said Minami.

  They leaned into one another as their foreheads touched and they just held that position for all the remaining moments they still had left. The bus honked. The first two buses had already rolled out of sight, leaving only Hiroshi’s bus.

  “I have to go now,” said Hiroshi sadly. Saying goodbye was so tough–but he was determined to come back.

  “I know,” said Minami softly.

  She leaned up and kissed him longingly once more. And the young couple kissed until Hiroshi, reluctantly and gently, pulled away, unlacing his fingers from Minami’s. She held onto them, extending those last moments for as long as possible, until finally, they all slipped away from her. She couldn’t bear to open her eyes but eventually she did. Hiroshi just looked into her eyes. There was such confidence in his face but the profound sadness in his eyes moved her. He then uttered the words, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Minami replied as she started to sob.

  The bus honked again and Hiroshi spun around to hide his own emotions and walked away, quickening his pace as he got closer to the bus.

  “Come back… come back,” said Minami as her voice started to trail off under her sobs. She pressed her face up into the fencing as her tears rolled down the cruel wire fencing. She then heard the shifting of the gears and the bus began to roll off. In a tone that spoke of immense heartache, she muttered softly under her breath, “Please come back… come back… I’m pregnant.”

  E I G H T E E N

  “That was the last time I sa
w your grandfather,” said Aiko’s grandmother.

  There was a long pause as Aiko absorbed the powerful story her grandmother had just told her. The details, the imagery, and the depth of emotions that had unfurled in the last few hours had held Aiko spellbound. She had to compose herself as she wiped the tears from her face. In the last few hours, she felt she had actually gotten to know her grandfather.

  “Grandpa sounded like a wonderful man,” said Aiko as she sniffed a couple of times.

  “He was. He was my one true love,” said Aiko’s grandmother. “Aiko, it must be late over there. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  Aiko laughed, “Grandma, I’m twenty-six. I don’t have a bedtime.”

  Long dark shadows of the night had already cast themselves over Minami’s living room. She had turned on a single light on its lowest setting as the California sun faded away. The streetlights were at their full intensity creating umbrellas of illumination.

  Aiko looked at the clock as she regained her senses and saw that it was close to midnight. She was shocked to realize that she had been speaking on the phone with her grandmother for nearly six hours.

  Aiko leaned forward from the sofa and spoke, “Oh my god, I didn’t know it was so late.”

  “I told you it was late, but later for you than it is for me,” teased Aiko’s grandmother.

  “Did I take you away from dinner?” asked Aiko.

  “No need to worry about that, dear, I’ll manage. Besides, I don’t eat much nowadays,” said Aiko’s grandmother reassuringly.

  Aiko gave out a small laugh as a smile crept across her face. She felt her connection with her grandmother growing stronger from their conversation.

  “Thank you, Grandma, for everything,” said Aiko, humbled.

  “Anything, dear. You go on to bed now or make yourself a little dinner. But don’t go out; it’s late.”

  Aiko smiled at her grandmother’s doting response. “I won’t. You should do the same.”

  “Goodnight, Aiko,” said her grandmother.

  “Goodnight Grandma… oh!” exclaimed Aiko before her grandmother hung up the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “I love you,” said Aiko.

  “Mmm… I love you too, Aiko,” replied her grandmother.

  Aiko ended the call and placed her cell phone on the coffee table in front of her. She brushed her hair back and leaned into the plush pillow of her sofa and stared upward at the ceiling. Her mind raced with scenes, but she kept on going back to a mental image of her grandfather. He was her age, young, with a dashing smile, strong, charming, brave, and loyal.

  Aiko’s stomach began to growl. She only had a Danish to eat the entire day. Though she was tired, she strolled into the kitchen to cook some ramen noodles. As she leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed, waiting for the water to bowl, her mind raced again with mental images of her grandmother’s vivid story. There were so many images, which prompted Aiko to grab her notebook to jot down a few notes. Though she had gotten up twice, once to empty the dry noodles into the boiling water and the second time to pour the noodles into a bowl, she had jotted down almost eight pages of notes by the time she slurped up the last of the noodles. As she reread her notes, a heavy yawn came over her and she finally headed off to bed, leaving the bowl, the chopsticks, and the notebook on the table.

  Aiko woke up to the ringing of her phone. She reached for the phone and with her blurred morning vision saw that it was Cat calling.

  “Hey,” said Aiko drowsily.

  “Good morning to you sleepy head,” said Cat.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s about 11 A.M. I can’t believe you’re still asleep,” said Cat in her usual feisty fashion.

  “I had a long night.”

  “Oh, did you? Oh do tell, hon.”

  “Nothing like that, Cat. I had a long chat with my grandmother.”

  “Oh, is that it? Well hey, why don’t you get dressed and we’ll head out to brunch and I’ll tell you about my long date with Tom,” as Cat snickered.

  Aiko’s senses lit up. “Oooo… you and Tom already went out on a date? This I got to hear. Say in about thirty minutes or so?”

  “Sounds good, see you then, hon,” Cat said as she ended the call.

  Cat picked up Aiko and they had chosen one of their favorite bistros to have brunch. They chose an outdoor table to enjoy the warm weather. Aiko ordered eggs benedict served on croissant halves. Cat ordered an omelet filled with everything imaginable: tomato, onion, green pepper, ham, and sausage.

  “You look pretty hungry, Cat,” Aiko said as she watched her friend ferociously cut into her omelet and devour large chunks of it.

  Cat swallowed and blurted out as she waved her fork in the air, “I always get hungry after sex.”

  Aiko almost spit out her juice. She caught herself in time to bring up her fingers to catch the few drops that were dripping down her chin. She looked at Cat incredulously. There was a big grin on her face.

  Cat continued eating away, savoring every bite as if she was satisfying some dragon-like appetite that demanded her to feed it.

  “You and Tom?” Aiko asked.

  “Who else?”

  “But you only just started talking to him on Friday,” said Aiko in a non-accusatory tone. She would be lying if she weren’t curious.

  “I know, so chalk it up to instant chemistry,” said Cat. She stabbed another piece of her vanishing omelet, lifted up her fork, and gently shook it as she spoke, “And let me tell you Aiko, the guy is built like a tank.”

  Aiko laughed but she was curious as she leaned forward to hear more.

  “Damn, Aiko, he went so long last night, I thought I had tread marks on me by the time he was done. It was really good sex.”

  Aiko brought her napkin up to her mouth in disbelief to hide her laugh. She also noticed that Cat’s story had caught the attention of some of the other female patrons. Cat ignored them. Aiko put down the napkin and smiled as she stared at her friend, who had brought the last bit of the omelet into her mouth and was clearly savoring it.

  “Shhh… not so loud, some people are eating, you know,” Aiko said playfully.

  “Oh, screw them. At least I got screwed last night, and it was good. It’s a free country,” Cat said as she took a sip from her coffee.

  Cat’s last sentence caught Aiko off guard. Though she said them casually, those words had a whole new meaning for Aiko now.

  “Hey, hon,” said Cat. “Looks like I brought up a sore point or something.”

  Aiko looked up and wasn’t aware that her attention had drifted. “Oh, sorry, my mind just went the other way for a moment.”

  “Gotcha. Well, Tom is taking me out to dinner tonight. He better call too, or I’ll lose all faith in men!” said Cat jokingly.

  Aiko laughed along but her thoughts went back to Cat’s earlier words: “It’s a free country.” She always assumed her friends saw her as an American, but she really didn’t know. She had always taken it for granted. But obviously, her grandmother couldn’t.

  “Cat?” asked Aiko.

  Cat pushed the coffee cup away from her lips “What’s up?”

  “Am I an American?”

  Cat looked at Aiko with a strange expression and then said, “Of course you are. Why would you ask such a silly question?

  “But am I really an American? If the United States went to war, say, with North Korea? Would people automatically doubt me and think that I’m a North Korean spy living here in America?”

  “But you’re Japanese right, Aiko?”

  “Yes, true but to everyone else, they can’t tell that I’m not North Korean right?”

  Cat nodded and agreed that Aiko had a point.

  “So if I’m Asian, Japanese American, will my patriotism always be in doubt simply because I have an Asian face?”

  “Jeez Aiko, I don’t know,” said Cat.

  “I mean take Tom, you’d never considered dating an Asian guy until I encourag
ed you right?”

  “Well true, but Tom is different, Aiko, you have to admit, he’s not like those other funny-looking Asian men I meet. Nothing against them, mind you, but they’re just not my type.”

  “But still, if I hadn’t pushed you, do you think you would have given Tom a chance? In your mind, does he seem American to you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Aiko. If you’re asking me if I ever brushed Asian men aside to date, then I’m probably guilty of it. But I’ll have to confess, Tom is pretty hot for an Asian guy…” Cat’s voice trailed off for a moment. “But you know, I don’t know if I see him as an American but I’m only getting to know him. I’ve never had many male friends who were Asian.”

  “Hmmm… yes, I see your point. So why is it that I’m more American?”

  “Because we hang out, we get along, and you speak perfect English,” said Cat.

  Aiko saw an interesting point and asked her friend, “Ahh… now what if I didn’t speak perfect English but I was still born here. Would you still hang out with me and think of me as an American?”

  Cat pondered for a few moments, “I think so, I’m still not sure what you’re getting at, Aiko. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Remember how I told you about my conversation with my grandmother yesterday?”

  “Yes, how is she doing?”

  “She’s doing well. It was really good to catch up with her. I guess you can say I’ve been feeling a little guilty for not getting to know her better. But more importantly, did you know that during World War II, that Japanese American men fought for the United States in Europe while more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were locked up in internment camps?”