by Jay Rubin
“This leather case is new, though, isn’t it?”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“Because I have a mirror just like yours, only mine came in a little brocade pocket.”
“That’s it! Brocade! Mine fell apart, so I threw it away and bought this. Where did you get your mirror?”
“Yoshiko gave it to me and said that it was something Mitsuko left with her for me. I think that must have happened before Mitsuko left Minidoka—”
Bill cut himself short, amazed at the sound of his own words. Speaking in Japanese, the name “Minidoka” had emerged more naturally on the tongue as “Minedoka,” and he thought of the old, yellowed copy of the camp newspaper in Mitsuko’s handwriting that Frank had shown him. As a non-Japanese word, “Minidoka” had been written in the katakana syllabary, and it had been spelled “Minedoka.”
“Mineko—Child of Minedoka,” he said.
“Bill, what is it? You look so serious—especially for someone without any clothes on.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“‘Mineko—Child of Minedoka.’ I thought you liked to think of it as ‘Child on the Mountaintop.’”
“Minedoka is written in katakana,” he said. “Just like Mineko.”
She laughed and pulled him close, kissing him on the head. “You’ve been out in the sun too long.”
“No, listen. Your birthday is April 17. You were born in 1944.” He counted nine months backwards to July 1943. Frank and Mitsuko. Together in Minidoka. Yoshiko had said that Jiro’s wife had almost given up hope of having a baby.
Mineko was not Mitsuko’s niece, but her daughter.
Now he saw what had always been there: the long, graceful, athletic body, the softly curving nose, the clear brows of Frank Sano reborn a beautiful woman. He hid his face in his hands. If it was this difficult for him, how would Mineko take it? Perhaps he should stop before it was too late.
“Bill, you’ve got to talk to me. What is going on inside that head of yours?”
But wasn’t it a matter for rejoicing? Mineko was even closer to him than he had imagined—spiritually, a sister; physically, a wife. Her very existence seemed to expiate the sin of his father. Child of the desert. Child of the agony of war and racial hatred. Child of Minedoka. He put his arms around her and held her close.
“You know I love you, Mineko,” he said. “And that I’ll always love you, no matter what.”
She nodded, drawing away to look into his eyes.
“I … I need to ask you something,” he said. “Have your parents ever said or done anything to make you think you were … different?”
“‘Different?’ How?” she said with a little laugh. “What are you getting at?”
“I mean, they’ve always been as loving and protective as I have seen them to be?”
“Too much so, if anything. You know that.”
“Yes, maybe. But that love of theirs is all that matters, don’t you agree?”
“All right. Now, will you get to the point?”
“I know now why your father wanted to talk with me alone, and why he pressed me so hard for whatever I might have learned about you before I first visited your home.” He paused and then said, “Because you are Mitsuko’s daughter.”
One side of her mouth drew up in a half smile, but that did nothing to diminish the sadness in her eyes. Her head shook almost imperceptibly.
“No, that can’t be right. I would have known. I would have suspected.”
“Not if your adoptive parents gave you all the love they would have given to their own child.”
“It’s crazy. You’re so obsessed with Mitsuko; it’s done something to your mind.” She twisted herself away from him and pressed her forehead to the rock.
He touched her arm.
“How can you be so sure?” she cried, raising her tear-stained face to look at him.
“You heard what Yoshiko said. Your mother thought she would never have a child.”
“That doesn’t prove anything. Lots of women conceive late.”
“But why didn’t your mother have any more children?”
“I told you, it was a difficult birth for her.”
“I don’t believe it. No, I’ll tell you what happened. Mitsuko came back from America pregnant, and she gave the baby to her brother and his childless wife. Then she went off to Nagasaki to join her parents, but for some reason, they were killed there while she escaped.”
“Why didn’t she let my father know she was alive? Or Yoshiko?”
“I don’t know. Maybe your father can tell us that. What was it he said? ‘It’s in the blood?’ He wasn’t talking about your mother, but his sister. He was ashamed of her.”
“It all seems so incredible—and so sordid. If what you say is true, there was nothing admirable in what she did.”
He wanted to tell her what a decent, honest, handsome man had loved her mother and given her life, but now was not the time. If Mitsuko was alive—
No. She was alive. Mitsuko would be the one to decide what her daughter would learn of the past.
36
ONCE THEY WERE BACK in Tokyo, Bill and Mineko worked for two solid days on a letter to her parents.
37 Momozono-cho
Nakano-ku, Tokyo
July 3, 1963 (Wed.)
Dear Mother,
You will probably not be too surprised to learn that I am married. It happened on June 24. My husband and I have just returned from a honeymoon of sorts and moved into this house in Nakano on Tuesday. I wish that the four of us could have reached some kind of understanding and that you could share in my happiness, but perhaps that would have been expecting too much at the time. I write to you today in the hope that things I have learned recently can serve to bring us together.
My husband and I spent a few days during the past week in Kyoto, visiting the famous temples. I suppose it was very lovely, but I can hardly remember a thing we saw. All we could think and talk about the whole time was you and Father. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that I was preparing myself to write this letter. I only hope that it reaches you while Father is in the office. You, at least, will probably open it, while he might simply throw it away unread.
I cannot blame either of you for being upset with me for the way I left the house. As happy as I am with my husband, I fear that I shall always regret what happened that day. You must believe me when I say that, as selfish as I have been, I have not forgotten all that my parents have done for me. Gratitude and filial piety are as much a part of me as ever, and they always will be. Even if you should choose to disown me, I will continue to love you as my parents and to honor your memory.
I emphasize this because I now strongly suspect that I was not born into the world as your daughter. Before we went to Kyoto, our destination was Itsuki, where I met Aunt Yoshiko. On the way back, we stopped briefly in Nagasaki. I know that you were trying only to protect me from pain when you chose to hide from me the identity of the woman who gave me life. And, yes, the truth has been very painful, but it has not made me love you any less. Never once in my nineteen years with you did you give me cause to suspect that I was anything other than your child. My husband says that this is the greatest proof of your love. I believe that he is right.
The war has left many scars on many people, and we may be able to begin to heal them by being honest with one another. My husband and I both sincerely hope that you and Father will consent to see us and talk to us about these things. Please call me here at 381-5779 if you think there is any way we can make this happen.
Your loving daughter,
Mineko
Mrs. Fukai was trembling when she admitted Bill and Mineko to the sitting room that Sunday afternoon. Her husband looked as morose as he had during the earlier confrontation, but in contrast to the lordly air he had adopted then, he greeted them formally, sitting on his heels and bowing. He did not apologize for his earlier behavior, and he nodded curtly when Mineko and Bill apolo
gized vaguely for having been “impolite the other day,” as the situation demanded. Then, staring off into the distance, his voice deep and somber, Jiro Fukai spoke of things long hidden.
“We were never informed that Mitsuko was being sent back from America, so no one went to meet her ship when it docked in Yokohama. This was in late November or early December 1943. Had we known, I would have been the one to go. I had been in Tokyo since I entered the university in 1930, and my wife and I had been married for several years. My elder brother, Ichiro, was in Itsuki with our parents, his wife and two children.
“Later we heard from my mother that the secret police kept Mitsuko locked up for several days in Yokohama. Then, after they had determined that she posed no danger to the state, they sent her to Itsuki. My parents did not know that she was coming until she walked through the door at Momigi. My mother wrote to me late in December to tell me all this. The next I heard, the entire family had moved to Nagasaki.
“The war had been going badly for many months, and anyone connected in any way with the enemy was looked upon as a spy. They called them ‘dogs.’ Everyone knew that Mitsuko had been living in America, married to an American, which made all the Fukais ‘dogs,’ even the children. No one would speak to them except to curse them. The other children beat Ichiro’s sons. The Fukais had long been resented as Christians, and this new evidence of collaboration with the enemy only stirred up those feelings. Unable to bear the hatred, the family went to live near the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki—which is ironic, since by then Mitsuko herself had abandoned her religion. I myself leave religious matters to my wife.
“Late in February, I received a telegram from my mother saying that Mitsuko was coming to see us, and she arrived a few days later. In all that time, nothing had been said about her condition. We were shocked to see her. My mother had convinced her to have the baby in Tokyo and give it to us. We had been trying for years to have a child without success, and my mother took pity on us.
“I did not know what to feel. I knew my wife desperately wanted a child, but I was hesitant to have a half-white baby in my home. When Mitsuko promised me that the child would be pure Japanese, I was horrified. I felt deeply ashamed of my sister, who was bearing the child of a man to whom she was not married. She never did tell us the name of the father.
“The baby was born in April—a beautiful, healthy baby girl. When I saw her in my wife’s arms, all my misgivings were swept aside. We have loved her with our whole hearts ever since.
“As the mother, Mitsuko wanted to name the baby herself. We approved of her choice, ‘Mineko,’ but she insisted that it be written in katakana like a foreign word. Neither of us wanted it that way, but she refused to listen to our objections. She even went with me to the town hall when I registered her as our daughter, just to make sure that the name was written in that unusual way. She never did explain her intention.
“Mitsuko also insisted on nursing the baby herself. It seemed only natural, and food supplies were already growing scarce then. It would have been a shame to waste her milk. We soon came to regret our practicality.
“With each passing month, Mitsuko’s love for the baby grew stronger. At first, she was only going to nurse the child for the first three or four months. Then it was to be five or six. We began to worry that she would change her mind and try to take the child back. My wife would invent errands for Mitsuko to run, just to get her away from the baby for a few minutes at a time. Then the bickering started. Mitsuko would argue that she was eventually going to have to lose her daughter and should be allowed to enjoy her as much as possible before that happened. The tension in the house was becoming unbearable.
“Early in November 1944, the B-29s began to appear above our heads. They came singly at first, flying so high our antiaircraft fire could not touch them. We began to think we had missed our chance to send Mitsuko away. We worried, too, that it might be more dangerous for all of us to stay in Tokyo. We feared for our lives, especially for Mineko. We were worried about the family in Nagasaki. We thought of going there together. No one knew what to do. No one knew where to go. There was no way to tell where the bombs would fall. We became paralyzed.
“Finally, on the twenty-fourth of November, our minds were made up for us. Seventy B-29s attacked and destroyed the Nakajima Aircraft Factory, where I was employed as an engineer. It was located near here, on the outskirts of the city, and we were living in a house close by. The factory was burning behind me, and I was running home when I saw the house take a direct hit. Ours was one of over three hundred houses destroyed by the bombs that day, but at that moment, I saw only the house with my wife and child in it blown to pieces before my eyes.
“The house collapsed, but it did not burn. I rounded up some workers, and we dug furiously at the wreckage. The only sign of life was Mineko’s crying. We tore away a section of roof and found Mitsuko lying beside a pile of cushions, her face covered with blood. Her own teeth had gashed her lower lip from side to side, but she was alive. The floor had caved in at that spot, and underneath the cushions we found Mineko half-buried in mud. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, but aside from some dirt in her mouth and a few scratches, she was unhurt.
“My wife and the maid were not so fortunate. A beam fell on the maid and killed her outright. My wife was trapped under the same section of roof, and she had suffered internal bleeding. Her face was gorged with blood and looked twice its normal size. I could hardly recognize her when we pulled her out.
“Even now, it seems incredible to me that anyone survived. If the bomb had been an incendiary type, and not a conventional bomb, I have no doubt that my wife, my sister, the baby, and the maid would all have perished. The women had heard the sirens but had wasted precious time squabbling over who should carry the baby. They ran from the house, hoping to reach the air raid shelter, but by then the planes were already in sight, and they went back inside. Mitsuko was holding the child and took her to the large formal room. My wife and the maid went to the maid’s room. Before the bomb fell, Mitsuko covered the baby with the floor cushions kept in that room for guests. This one act undoubtedly saved her life.
“Within ten days, both women had recovered enough to travel. I brought them and the baby to the home of my wife’s family in Chiba, some thirty miles from Tokyo, but I myself had to return to the city to resume my work. I was transferred to an engine factory in the delta flatlands of the Sumida River. I lived in a dormitory with other men whose families had been evacuated, but all around us were the wives and children of the poor laborers who had no place to send their families. I used to wonder what would happen to them when the bombs came.
“And we all knew they would be coming. Through December, and into January and February, the number of B-29s over Tokyo steadily increased, attacking day and night. They concentrated on military targets, but many civilians were killed. The Sumida delta provided the perfect combination for a tragedy. That part of the city is crisscrossed by canals, and each block of land, surrounded by water, was crammed with people living on top of one another beside the factories that were making weapons.
“A rumor began to circulate in March that the Americans would choose the tenth, Army Memorial Day, for the biggest raid ever, and nature seemed to confirm our fears. All day on the ninth, chill winds whipped out of the north, and the sky was covered with a thick overcast. It was cold enough so that dirty patches of snow remained on the ground from a few days earlier. The winds grew stronger after nightfall. There was nothing to do but go to bed. For one thing, lights had to be kept to a minimum because of the blackout, and everyone tried to get sleep in case the sirens might wake us, as they usually did, in the middle of the night. Sleeping was also the best way to endure an empty stomach and to keep warm.
“The sirens did, in fact, sound at 10:30, but the all-clear came through and we returned to our mats. The real thing came at fifteen minutes after midnight. It was a night I will never be able to forget for as long as I live. I sometimes think
that, at the moment of my death, the last things to enter my mind will be the sights that were seared into my brain that night. The attack lasted no more than two-and-a-half hours, I read later, but at the time it seemed to go on forever, like the eternal punishments of hell. Close to ninety thousand people were killed in the one raid.
“The sky was already burning red and streaked with black smoke trails when I got out to the street. I looked around me and realized I could read the posters on buildings as easily as in the light of day, though not a single street lamp was lighted. People were running in all directions, screaming, but as close as they were to me, I could hardly hear the sound of their voices through the roar of the airplane engines. The bombs came down, tearing through the air, and I could see the flash of the explosions through closed eyelids and feel the ground shake. Winter had suddenly turned into scorching summer. The air was thick and painful to breathe. The wind whipped showers of sparks everywhere like some kind of burning blizzard.
“The B-29s were huge and horrible, flying down at rooftop level, dropping firebombs on every inch of ground. Fire engines tried to force their way through the crowds, but they drifted around aimlessly, sirens wailing. It was pitiful to watch some of the men assigned to the fire brigades trying to douse the flames with bamboo water cannons. These and our fighting spirit were supposedly all we needed to counter the B-29 raids, according to the government. And in case they weren’t enough, there was the Air Defense Law, which required Tokyo residents to stay in the city during raids to help fight the fires.
“I decided then and there that I had had enough of doing my patriotic duty, and I was going to get out. To many, it seemed that the only place to go was into the canals, but I was afraid that once I got into the water, I would never come out. The water was red with the reflections of the flames, and heads were bobbing on the surface, as thick as the public bath on a busy night. I heard later that most of the people in the canals suffocated when the flames burned over them, and the others drowned or died of shock in the cold water.