“That’s a fancy-looking creature. Do those actually live around here?” he said.
The drawing was of a butterfly with lacy wings and a cat’s face. Ella nodded, ever so slightly.
“I wasn’t aware that Hawaii had flying buttercats. But this is good information to know,” he said, winking at Violet.
It didn’t take Zach long to make himself comfortable at the table, and for Violet to decide she liked him.
Jean beamed. “Tell me everything, young man. Why didn’t you contact me?”
Without his hat, he looked younger. Jean was twenty-five, so Violet guessed Zach to be about twenty-two. “They wouldn’t let us. You know how that goes. If anyone so much as mentioned pineapple or island in our letters home, they were crossed out or returned.”
“So you must have been in the convoy that passed through town this weekend. And you’re just coming here now?” Jean asked.
“I searched for your face when we drove through. Trust me, I came as soon as I could.”
“Your group looks different from the fellas that left us last month,” Violet said.
“Camp Pendleton is a far cry from Betio Atoll. God bless those boys.” Zach’s face clouded over.
“What can you tell us? How long are you here for?” Jean asked.
Zach shared the same smile as his sister, toothy and nearly wider than his face. “That, I can’t say. And when you contact Mom and Dad, don’t say I’m here. The last thing we need is the Japanese to know what we’ve got going on. Though Lord knows they have their spies.”
Violet’s stomach lurched. “Not in this town.” She was fed up to her teeth with outsiders assuming all Japanese were spies.
“You can’t be too sure,” Zach said.
“I can vouch for a good number of them.”
“We’re just here to protect our country.”
“Just beware of blanket assumptions based on skin color,” Violet said.
Zach backed off. “I’ve got to run, since we’re supposed to be on official business. It’s six o’clock and I don’t want to get shot, but I’ll come down when on liberty if that’s all right?” he said. “And next time we’ll bring Roscoe.”
“Who’s Roscoe?” Jean asked.
“Just you wait. You’re going to love him.” He glanced at Ella. “You, too, Ella.”
At the sound of her name, Ella perked up, but still regarded her drawing instead of Zach.
“Please do! Oh, Zach, I’m so happy to see you. You look well,” Jean said.
He placed his hat back on and bent his grasshopper legs to bring him level with Ella. “And maybe I’ll get to see that buttercat for real next time.”
Ella looked at the floor.
* * *
Later in the evening, Violet peered through the window at Setsuko’s house down the hill. Lights were out, which wasn’t surprising, since lights were always out. She debated walking down to see if anyone was still awake. There was no excuse for being out past ten unless on official business, and she didn’t want to get shot by the guards set up at the school entrance. Curfew was taken seriously. Even still, their houses were on campus, and she would be only a thin shadow against the backs of houses.
“I’m going to walk down to Setsuko’s. Can you keep an eye on Ella?” she asked Jean.
“Now?”
If there was one thing in the world she wanted, it was for Ella to come alive again. “I need to ask.” After all, why not Japanese school? It couldn’t hurt to have Ella learning Japanese customs and language, especially living in a blended town like theirs.
Jean gave her one of her teacher looks, and planted her hands on her hips. “Wait until tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
She sneaked around back and padded down the pathway, following a thin trail of moonlight. Voices floated in and out from darkened windows along the way, and radios sent their noise into the black air. Everything seemed so desperately regular, except for the fact that she had to sneak to her friend’s house in the cover of night. There would be no sleeping until she talked to Takeo.
From the road up to the school, the hum of an engine grew louder. Why hadn’t she accounted for headlights in planning her route? A beam of brilliant light shot across her path as a truck came over the hill. She pressed herself behind a tree, cursing her hips for not being slimmer. But the truck continued on toward the gym. A few minutes passed without another truck.
Outside the house, she hesitated. A knock at the door might cause alarm, but it was too late now. A radio played in the kitchen, and she tapped on the door, while at the same time whispering through the screen. “Setsuko, it’s Violet.”
The radio turned down and feet shuffled. Silence filled the house.
“It’s Violet,” she said again, this time louder.
The door opened and she was pulled into the dark living room by strong hands. “What are you doing here?” Setsuko asked. She wore a rice-bag kimono. Her hair, which usually coiled on her shoulders in permed waves, was now pinned up. Violet smelled seaweed on her breath.
Takeo stood behind Setsuko and nodded to the kitchen. A hint of light seeped out from under the door.
She had to work up the nerve for her request. “Did you sell a lot of sweet potato in Waimea?”
Takeo squinted his already narrow eyes. He knew her too well. “Is that what you came here for, Violet? To ask me that?”
Not much taller than she was, he was strong enough to carry a whole bushel of cane on his back. As a Nisei, he had both feet planted firmly in Hawaii. What Violet loved about him was that he spent more time listening than talking.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” she said.
“Go.”
“Ella wants to come to Japanese school.”
For a moment, everything in the room seemed to be listening. The crickets outside quieted and the wind hushed. Setsuko coughed.
“I don’t understand,” he said, throwing a hard glance at his wife.
“My daughter wants to attend your school. As a student.”
His eyebrows lifted and he stood there barefoot and unsmiling.
“Please, Takeo. I need this favor.” An uneasy feeling welled up in her stomach. She worried he would say no. Ella rarely asked for much, and Violet wanted to give her this.
“Bring her by day after tomorrow.”
* * *
In the morning, Violet sat at the bureau, readying for school and applying cover-up to her lower lids. The blue of her once-bright eyes had rubbed off sometime in the past year. She only hoped her pink lipstick made up for the lost color. Worse than that, the waves in her latest permanent were falling out and her honey-colored hair now stood stiff like straw.
Last night after talking with Setsuko, she had tried counting convoy trucks to help her fall asleep. That hadn’t worked. Jean said maybe it was the grape juice cans rolled in her hair that caused the insomnia, but Violet suspected it was more likely from thinking about things over and over. And over. There were so many layers to her grief. While Ella had a perpetual stomachache, Violet was prone to a perpetual heartache.
Jean was already in the kitchen banging pots around when Violet walked in. “Bad sleep?” she asked.
Violet nodded. Jean always looked fresh from the beauty parlor, not one hair out of place and as though someone had smoothed coconut oil over each strand. Even first thing in the morning. When they had first moved in together, Violet was unsure how two strong-willed women would get along under the same roof. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize that having Jean around was like having her very own wife. On some mornings, coffee was already made, banana pancakes already piled high on a plate, still steaming. And Jean knew how to scour a kitchen clean.
When Ella joined them at the table, dark smudges under her eyes were visible. Though she never complained about being tire
d, surely the nightmares had taken their toll. “Where’s Snowflake?” she asked.
“She must be outside hunting for mice,” Violet said.
Ella left her bowl of cornflakes and walked to the front door.
“Pumpkin, you need to eat before Hiro and Umi come for you.”
Ella’s voice cut through the morning stillness. “Snowflake!”
Snowflake didn’t show up, but two other striped cats arrived on the porch and rubbed up against Ella’s legs. She sat to pet them, leaving her breakfast unattended. Cats were more important than food and water, and Violet prayed that Snowflake really was out hunting for mice.
“Your cereal is getting soggy. Come on up and eat.” Violet looked at the clock. The Hamasu kids were never late and she wondered what was keeping them. The twins were Ella’s only friends these days, and the more she was around them, the better.
Ella remained in a fur huddle and acted like she didn’t hear. Violet stuffed an extra ball of rice into Ella’s lunch tin, then pulled her daughter along. “Come on. You’ll have to eat when you get there.”
Honoka’a School was the largest high school on the island, with almost one thousand students coming from as far as Paauilo to the east and Waimea to the west. The way the buildings stood on the hillside over town looking out on the Pacific reminded Violet of an exclusive manor. When the skies were clear, she sometimes imagined being able to see all the way to Alaska. On the way to her classroom, she poked her head into Setsuko’s room and waved.
“We missed Umi and Hiro this morning,” Violet said.
Setsuko met her at the door. “They’re with their father, harvesting sweet potato. His worker fell ill.”
Nowadays, when people weren’t where they were supposed to be, Violet’s whole body filled with unease. Only natural after what she’d been through, but there was always something to worry about, between Ella and the war. There was also the matter of all her Japanese friends and their livelihoods. Everyone said it would only be a matter of time before they closed the Japanese school. When your country was at war with Japan, but the Japanese made up almost half of your population, life turned complicated.
* * *
Toward the end of fifth period, the bell hadn’t even rung when Mr. Nakata showed up outside her classroom. He stood to the side and nodded, but didn’t enter. The look on his face was familiar, one part pity and one part annoyance at having to trudge over here. Even though it had been more than a year since he took over for Herman, in her mind Nakata would always be the new principal. No one could replace her husband.
When she acknowledged him back, all her students turned their heads in unison toward the door. “Keep practicing your lines, class. I’ll be right outside. And I expect that you will have no errors.”
The typewriters clicked away.
“I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s been a small incident with Ella,” Nakata said.
Her throat tightened. “Well, I am alarmed. Is she all right?”
He moved in closer and dropped his voice. Wafts of pomade rose from his slick hair. “She’s fine, but she wet her pants during the air-raid drill and Mr. Hodges sent her to the infirmary. I’ll watch your class until the bell.”
The school nurse should have a change of clothes for Ella, but it never got easier. Violet turned and ran.
“Violet, don’t you want to put some shoes on?” She ran back in, switched out her Japanese slippers for her flats and sped across the field to the infirmary. The campus was calm-before-the-storm kind of empty, minutes before school got out. She reached the infirmary, a converted old classroom, in one minute flat.
“Hello, Mrs. Baker. Where’s Ella?”
Mrs. Baker wore her whites crisp and clean, even though she had outgrown them several years ago. Nevertheless, her overabundant body made for good comforting to sick children. Or scared children, which had become more common these days with air-raid drills and gas-mask practice.
“She’s in the back. I got her changed but she refused to go back to class,” Mrs. Baker said.
Ella didn’t look up when Violet walked into the room. In the oversize PE uniform, her arms looked like small wires sticking out from the sleeves. Red spots patterned her arm, one trickling blood, which meant she was picking at herself again. If Ella noticed her arrival, she didn’t let on. She was drawing. Violet sat down on the worn-out carpet next to her.
“That’s a lovely cat, honey.” Nothing but silence. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Ella shook her head and filled in the wings of a giant bird hovering overhead. The bird appeared to be ready to snatch the cat away in its claws. “You worried about Snowflake? She’ll be there when we get home. She always is.” It better be the case. “Come on. We can bring that.”
Ella remained rooted. “Where are Umi and Hiro?”
“They had to help their father today, selling sweet potato.”
The distance between them narrowed when Ella’s focus shifted from the drawing up to Violet. Her brown eyes were still too big for her face. “I don’t like it here without them.”
Violet fought to keep her expression in order. Watching Ella suffer was the worst part of this whole war. “They’ll be back tomorrow. Plus, you know how close my room is.”
Luther Hodges, the shop teacher and Herman’s friend, popped his head in. “Everything okay here?”
“Just having a rough day. We’re fine.”
Ella began picking the scab on her arm vigorously. She wouldn’t look up.
“The sirens seem to set her off. I’ll keep an extra eye on her,” he said.
Ella seemed much more comfortable around the women teachers and women in general, but any help would be welcome. “Thank you.”
To Ella she said, “Did you hear that? You can always seek out Mr. Hodges if you are feeling scared.”
Ella began quivering and Violet pulled her in for a hug. “What is it, honey?”
“The air-raid drills scare me.”
“They’re just practice. Nothing is going to happen to us, especially with half the marines in America just up the street.”
There was some measure of comfort having so many armed men around. Soldiers with enough heavy artillery to sink the island and fancy new amphibious landing boats. A small piece of her wondered, though, if that also made the Big Island more of a target.
Chapter Three
Ella
I was already awake and still wrapped in my horse blankets when Mama came in this morning wearing slippers. Being from Minnesota, Mama doesn’t understand walking barefoot. Even in the house. She wears socks when it’s cold and Japanese slippers when it’s hot, the kind with velvet straps and woven straw where your foot goes. I’m her little native, she says, because I hate wearing shoes. A lot of the Japanese kids from the plantation don’t even get to choose because they’re so poor. For them, an umbrella is more important. It’s one or the other. Rain comes down in buckets here, so the umbrella wins out.
I pretended I was still sleeping because I worried there might be another air-raid drill at school. The noise sets something off inside me. We always have them on Tuesdays. So even if there was a surprise one yesterday, it could happen again. Half the time, I wet my pants. I guess I forgot to mention that earlier. Talk about embarrassing. It smells up the room and everyone turns to me. Sally Botello and Gina Chang pinch up their noses and fan their faces like they’re dying. Even Mrs. Hicks looks at me with such pity I want to ask her to please leave the classroom and head over to detention. Teachers should know better. At least the Japanese kids ignore it.
From halfway across the floor, Mama smelled like cinnamon and morning sun. When she shook me, I acted groggy, but she was wearing a huge smile as she sat on the edge of my bed. Snowflake, who showed up last night wet but alive, turned on her purr even louder. It’s almost like someone put a little motor inside he
r throat. I call it a purr-box.
Mama smoothed down my hair. “Good morning, sun blossom.”
She calls me weird names. Jean started it. And in case you’re wondering, I call Jean Jean, not Aunt Jean or Miss Quinlan. She said if we’re going to live together, I might as well save my breath. Which was smart, because I have less breath than other people. But I do also call her Honey Jean, mainly because honey is her favorite word. I called her it once and the name stuck.
“I have good news,” Mama said.
“School is canceled?”
She laughed. “Something even better.”
Nothing would have been better. My eyes stung with the coming of tears. I cry a lot for no reason. But the doctor says this is normal behavior for someone who has been through a difficult situation. Which I have.
“What?”
“Takeo said you could start Japanese school today! You’ll be the first non-Japanese in the school.”
Now, this was news. If I could have picked one thing to do in life, it was go to Japanese school, especially now that it was just fun stuff. Before Pearl Harbor, they taught them to write and talk Japanese. Not anymore. No one wants the kids to be spies.
Somehow, being white made me feel like an outsider, like the only piece of corn in a barrel of rice. Mama said we’re corn people, being from Minnesota. But I consider myself Hawaiian, or even partly Japanese. If you spend even five minutes around them, you will know that Japanese people are smarter, neater and more interesting than us. They also don’t talk as much, and are probably good at keeping secrets. Sometimes I wonder if I should tell Umi what I know. About my dad.
“For real?” I asked.
Mama pulled out a small wooden box and handed it to me. “You’ll need this, to write with.”
I sat up and opened the box. Thin bamboo brushes and bottles of ink were neatly packed in on top of white see-through-looking paper. I held it up to my nose and sniffed. It smelled of tree bark mixed with some kind of chemical.
A thin smile crept onto my face. The first one in a while. After the incident with Papa disappearing, it took about a hundred years before I smiled again. At least it seemed that way. Mama, too. Neither of us had anything to smile about, and I think we were both afraid to let ourselves have any kind of happiness. Then, about seven months later, I heard laughing in the kitchen. When I cracked open the door, I heard Jean telling jokes. I don’t know where she gets them, but she always has new ones.
Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers Page 2