The Sun Gods

by Jay Rubin

  “Billy bit him. Hard. I saw the teeth marks on Tom’s hand. I think he broke the skin.” Yoshiko was grinning now.

  “You’re kidding,” Mitsuko said. “No, you’re not kidding, are you? He really did that?” Before she knew it, Mitsuko herself was smiling. The two sisters looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  18

  ON TUESDAY, APRIL 21, the order came through for the first contingent of Seattle Japanese to report for transfer to the state fair grounds at Puyallup. The Army started with the Beacon Hill neighborhood, where the greatest number of Japanese lived. They gave the people exactly one week to put their affairs in order. Each person would be allowed to bring only two suitcases of clothing and a seabag full of bedding.

  Immediately, sidewalk sales began springing up all through the area. Each day, Mitsuko, Yoshiko and Billy took a bus south to Beacon Hill, where they served as babysitters and sales clerks to harried mothers who were trying to sell off possessions they could not store. The clouds hung thick over the city late in the afternoon of Monday the twenty-seventh, the last day for sidewalk sales. Mitsuko sat in a folding chair by a table—a door on two orange crates—on the sidewalk outside the boxy, little house of Mrs. Ayako Kishi. Mrs. Kishi herself stood by, incessantly yanking at the stray hairs from her big, gray bun. Never very robust, Mrs. Kishi had become a bag of bones over the past week, and each time she lifted an arm to tug at the hairs, the sharp corner of her elbow seemed about to tear through its sallow covering of skin.

  A tall, dark-haired white woman with a black hat and pocketbook hunched over the table, fingering a porcelain figure among the piles of dishes that remained on the rickety makeshift table. Almost a foot high, the piece was more a sculpture than pottery, depicting a cross-eyed, smiling little boy bent at the waist and holding at arm’s length a bulbous gourd almost as tall as himself. He pressed the gourd down upon the head of a huge, green-finned catfish that wriggled between his wide-spread legs. Decorated with bright red and blue and green floral designs, the fine white skin of the porcelain was crisscrossed by a network of hairline cracks suggesting great antiquity.

  “What is this?” asked the white woman, never looking up.

  “That is hyotan-namazu,” replied Mrs. Kishi. “I don’t know in English. Old Japanese saying. Hold down slimy fish with gourd. Can’t do it. Can’t stop it.”

  “I’ll give you five dollars,” said the woman brusquely.

  “This very old piece. More than a hundred years. I will sell for fifty dollars, but worth a lot more.”

  “I don’t mean five dollars for the piece,” said the woman. “Five dollars for everything on the table.” She shot a glance at Mrs. Kishi.

  The emaciated Japanese woman let out a sharp, little giggle, her face a contorted smile. Then she turned to Mitsuko, pleading in Japanese, “Please tell her this is a Kakiemon porcelain. We’ve had it in the family since the time of my great-grandmother. It’s priceless.”

  But before Mitsuko could say anything, the woman piped up, “Come on, I haven’t got all day, I have to go home and cook dinner for my husband. You’re leaving tomorrow, it’ll be dark soon. I’ll give you five dollars now.”

  Mrs. Kishi began to shiver as if a cold gust had blown down from the mountains. She looked at the woman, her head shaking almost imperceptibly at first, then violently as she reached out for the porcelain boy with the gourd. Her bony arm went up, and a horrible animal shriek tore from her throat. With all her strength, she smashed the figure to the sidewalk, scattering white shards in all directions.

  “No!” she cried. “No! No! No! No!”

  In the next instant, her spindly hands fastened on the edge of the door-table and yanked it upwards, sending a cascade of gleaming porcelain crashing to the sidewalk around the feet of the white woman.

  “You’re crazy!” the woman screamed, stumbling back and nearly falling into the gutter. “I’ll have you arrested!”

  “Arrested? Arrested?” wailed Mrs. Kishi. “I am already arrested!”

  Mitsuko stood and tried to restrain Mrs. Kishi, who bent down, grabbing one unbroken dish after another and smashing it to the pavement. One of her furiously pumping elbows caught Mitsuko in the ribs, but Mrs. Kishi seemed not to notice. Mitsuko stepped back, wincing in pain. She watched helplessly as the lovely dishes turned into white splinters in the waning light.

  Again the next morning, Mitsuko, Yoshiko and Billy took a bus headed south, this time to Eighth and Lane, a drab industrial intersection in the Japanese quarter, where the evacuees had been ordered to report by eight o’clock.

  “At least the rain has stopped,” Mitsuko said.

  “Thank God for that,” replied Yoshiko.

  “Yes, I suppose He deserves some thanks for something.”

  “Please stop it, Mitsuko! You can’t let an innocent remark pass anymore. You have not been abandoned by God, just a man.”

  Mitsuko was concerned that perhaps the man himself might be among those gathered at Eighth and Lane. She did not want to see Tom if she could avoid it, but she was willing to endure that much discomfort rather than miss the departure of the greater part of the congregation.

  She stood in the crowded bus, holding Billy’s hand and trying to ignore the ugly stares of the white passengers surrounding her. Why did Goro have to make such a display of his wealth, buying a house outside the center of Japanese life among these hate-filled people? If he had found a home near Beacon Hill, they would have been among the ones shipped out this week, and this dreadful state of limbo would be coming to an end. As it stood now, they did not even know when they would be ordered to register and pack.

  Slowed by heavy traffic, their bus did not deliver them to Dearborn Street until nearly 8:30, but as soon as they turned the corner Mitsuko knew they had not missed the departure. Hundreds of Japanese crowded the block of Lane Street. Most had paper tags on their lapels and sat or stood among dark, lumpy mounds of suitcases and seabags, also tagged. A light breeze stirred the tags dangling from the humans and their baggage, but Mitsuko could see that the paper strips bore numbers, not names.

  The evacuees wore an incredible variety of clothing: high-heeled shoes and hiking boots, sandals and galoshes; silk slacks, woolen dresses, dungarees and gabardine; cardigans and fur-lined parkas, overcoats and business suits and rain ponchos and parasols.

  One young couple standing near them was smartly attired in brand new ski outfits. When Mitsuko pointed them out to her sister, Yoshiko exclaimed, “Ara! It’s Howard and Linda Domoto. They were just married two weeks ago at the church.” She touched the young man on the arm and, bowing, expressed her heartfelt wishes for a good trip. She and her sister Mitsuko would be joining them at ‘Pile-Up’ before long, she assured them.

  The man ducked his head and said, “It’s ‘pyoo-allup,’ Mrs. Nomura. The spelling has nothing to do with the pronunciation. But thanks. I look forward to seeing you in Puyallup, I guess.”

  “Oh, well,” Yoshiko chuckled. “I’ll be learning it soon enough.”

  “Excuse me,” interjected Mitsuko, “you and Mrs. Domoto look so handsome in your ski clothing, but …”

  Domoto laughed, forming a deep crease in his upper lip. “I’m starting to sweat already. I guess I took them too literally when they advised us to wear warm, sturdy clothes. I wish they had told us where we’ll be going after Puyallup.”

  “You can be sure of one thing,” remarked his wife, rolling her eyes, “it won’t be Palm Springs.”

  Car after car of new evacuees and well-wishers drove up to the curb. There were some white faces among them, but fortunately not Tom’s. A black man driving a shiny new car deposited a Japanese family and their bags at the curb, hugged each of the children, and drove off shaking his head.

  The older people were bowing to each other with great formality, while the youngsters laughed and shook hands and kissed. Most faces wore smiles, some of them more strained than others.

  Mitsuko noticed Mrs. Uchida, and she brought Billy o
ver to say goodbye. The woman was as affectionate as ever to Billy, but was distant with Mitsuko. Other women she knew from the congregation also seemed uncomfortable with her, most likely because of her recent absence from the church. Rather than complicate an already difficult situation, Mitsuko held back and allowed Yoshiko to do most of the circulating and talking.

  When the goodbyes had gone on for an hour or more with no sign of the promised transportation, the tedium of waiting had many people gazing blankly at the sky or sitting on their sacks of bedding, staring at the pavement.

  “Maybe they changed their minds!” piped up a man wearing round eyeglasses, but few in the crowd were in the mood to laugh anymore. Several people warily eyed the press photographers who mingled with the crowd, occasionally snapping pictures with their big Graflex cameras.

  Some of the commotion was restored when a convoy of Greyhound buses roared around the corner and pulled up to the curb just after ten o’clock.

  “I was kinda hoping they’d forget,” said Howard Domoto with a sour grin, but the few chuckles shaken loose by his remark quickly gave way to gasps and grumbles when an armed soldier stepped off of each vehicle, coming to attention by the front door with bayonets held aloft. The news photographers became especially animated, and flashbulbs began firing at several points along the block.

  Now most of the action seemed to be concentrated at the lead bus, and Mitsuko brought Billy there, Yoshiko following close behind. A young man with a “JACL” button on his jacket stood by the front door of the bus, officiously calling out numbers from a list on a clipboard.

  “Who is that?” asked Mitsuko.

  “Jim Shigeno,” said Yoshiko. “He is one of the leaders of the Japanese American Citizens League.”

  “Oh, yes. They are the people who were so eager to be sent away to ‘prove their loyalty.’”

  Before Yoshiko could respond to this, one of the photographers pushed his way onto the bus and dragged a young couple and their little son outside to pose by the soldier at the front door. Faces bright red, they produced their best smiles to cover their embarrassment, then hurried back onto the bus, the driver closing the door behind them.

  “Look!” cried Yoshiko, “it’s Reverend Hanamori!” She hurried over to the reverend, who was leaning on his cane and speaking with two tall white men. After some hesitation, Mitsuko brought Billy over to the group. Yoshiko whispered to her that one of the men was the Reverend Everett Thompson of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who spoke fluent Japanese, and the other, the Reverend Emery Andrews of the Japanese Baptist Church. Each of them vigorously shook the Reverend Hanamori’s hand and spoke to him encouragingly.

  “I don’t know why I’m saying goodbye,” said Reverend Andrews. “You’ll probably be seeing me every day in Puyallup. I have a list this long of errands my people want me to run.”

  The two clergymen moved on through the crowd, and Reverend Hanamori turned from them with a broad smile on his face, but the smile disappeared when his eyes met Mitsuko’s.

  “I have not seen you at church,” he said. “You must be having a very difficult time.”

  Mitsuko flashed an angry glance at her sister, but Yoshiko looked startled and shook her head to deny she had betrayed Mitsuko’s trust.

  “I thought so,” said Reverend Hanamori, looking from one sister to the other. “No,” he said reassuringly, “Mrs. Nomura has told me nothing. And let me guess: Pastor Tom has also told you nothing.”

  “I do not understand,” said Mitsuko.

  “Pastor Tom has left our church,” he said.

  “Left the church?” gasped Mitsuko.

  “Yesterday. I was just as surprised as you. He has moved to a Congregationalist church in Magnolia. A very rich … white church.”

  “I can’t believe it. Pastor, I wish I could apologize for him. The man is such a … such a …”

  “Let us just say he is no Emery Andrews. Do you realize that Reverend Andrews is going to follow his flock wherever they go, even after his church is boarded up? Look at him over there, smiling that loving smile of his. You would never guess that his heart is breaking.”

  Before there was time to say more, Jim Shigeno’s hoarse voice called a number that made the Reverend Hanamori perk up. “We’ll talk more at the camp!” he said, hobbling over to the next bus after a bow in the sisters’ general direction.

  Before long, the buses were filled with nearly five hundred passengers, and their engines began to whir. Just then a car screeched around the corner and pulled to a stop. A young Japanese woman holding a yellow bouquet leaped out, wild-eyed, and at the same moment a window on the lead bus flew up. “Minnie! Over here!” shouted the young man who had opened the window. The young woman ran to him, breathless. “Sorry I was late, Henry. Here!” She thrust a bouquet of daffodils into his outstretched hand.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you, I hope.”

  The buses began slowly to pull away from the curb. Sad smiles and feeble waves were sent from the windows to the crowd on the sidewalk. Mitsuko heard sobbing behind her and turned to see a thin, bespectacled white woman with tight, white curls over her ears and a long chain around her neck. Her face was buried in a handkerchief. She held her hand aloft in parting, but obviously she was too distraught to look directly at anyone on the buses.

  Mitsuko nudged Yoshiko, who whispered, “That is Miss Mahon, the principal of Bailey Gatzert school. We read about her in the newspaper. What a wonderful woman.” Yoshiko herself began to weep now for the first time.

  That evening, Mitsuko opened the paper to find the photograph of the embarrassed couple with their little son who had been pulled off their bus by the photographer. The caption under the picture read, “Japs good-natured about evacuation.”

  Three days later, their own orders to register and evacuate came through, which meant it was time for Mitsuko to stop assuming vaguely that everything would work out with Billy, and to start making plans. First, she had to call Tom to say that she intended to keep his son.

  “You’ll get no fight from me,” said Tom. “It won’t hurt him to go to a government camp for a few weeks, or even a few months. I can’t handle him right now. There’s too much happening in my life.”

  “That is what I heard from Reverend Hanamori. Aren’t you ashamed?”

  “Ashamed?! You are the one who ought to be—”

  Mitsuko hung up rather than listen to more of his ranting, and he did not call back.

  So she was nothing more to him than a convenience, a babysitter. As soon as he was ready for Billy, he would come and take him away. Perhaps it was the best she could hope for. All mothers have to lose their sons eventually; she would simply have to live more consciously of the day-to-day joys than most. And who was to say that a just god would not strike—

  She must break herself of the habit of hoping for divine intervention.

  “Maybe we should dye his hair,” suggested Yoshiko. “It’s as straight as Japanese hair, just the wrong color.”

  “And what do we do about those blue eyes?” Mitsuko asked skeptically. “Not to mention his platinum eyebrows and white skin!”

  “I’m sure if Tom wrote a letter …”

  “I refuse to ask him for anything.”

  “But as a last resort …”

  “Only if worse comes to worst.”

  The night wore on, and still no plan took shape. Mitsuko woke early and watched the sun rise. Almost unconsciously, she bowed her head and clapped her hands together as she stood before the kitchen window.

  And then it came to her. She hurried into the bedroom and shook Yoshiko.

  “Wake up, Yoshiko!”

  After struggling to open her eyes, Yoshiko was awake.

  “All right,” she said. “What is this amazing plan of yours?”

  “We don’t have to do anything,” she said. “We don’t have to fool anybody. They’re already fooling themselves, those arrogant government officials. They see ‘Japs’ in every corner. ‘
Once a Jap, always a Jap.’ If I say I’m Billy’s mother, he’s a Jap! They want to lock up people with as little as one-sixteenth Japanese blood, don’t they?”

  “But if you’re supposed to be his mother, he should be half Japanese.”

  “I’ll say he takes after his father. Besides, registration can be done by one representative from the family. Billy doesn’t have to be there.”

  “But he does have to go with us to the camp.”

  “By then, he’ll be tagged and registered like everyone else.”

  “I don’t know,” Yoshiko said.

  But Mitsuko was sure it would work.

  Instead of registering right away at the Civil Control Station on Monday, they joined the long line at the old Japanese Chamber of Commerce building on Jackson Street for the required typhoid inoculation. The Japanese doctor administering the shots looked up in surprise as Mitsuko shoved Billy’s little, white arm in front of him.

  “Just do it,” she commanded, and she collected the signed card from the nurse with a triumphant smile.

  On the following day, she went alone to the Control Station and came back waving a handful of white tags. “Here,” she said to an incredulous Yoshiko, “from now on we are Family Number 20710.”

  19

  BILLY WAS ASLEEP when the Greyhound bus pulled through the gate of the Puyallup fairgrounds. Four months past his fourth birthday, he was now a significant armload. Mitsuko had difficulty squeezing between the rows of seats, and she had to feel her way down the steps of the bus. Her right foot came to rest on something solid, but her left foot plunged into lukewarm, sticky mud, and she began to topple sideways. At the last second she managed to shift her weight to the foot on solid planking, and only the left leg and the edge of her skirt touched the mud. Billy was still sound asleep in her arms.

  A young Nisei man with a JACL button helped her pull her foot out of the mud and gestured for her to follow the line.

  “I want to wash this off,” she said, looking down at the grayish slime clinging to her foot and ankle.