by Mariko Nagai
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About the Author
Copyright Page
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For Deborah,
who believed in this more than I did
—M.N.
PART ONE
SUMMER
A MANCHURIAN BIRTHDAY
Horse presses herself against me,
and I press my hand against her neck,
excitement running through us
like the summer wind.
“Remember not to go too far.
Ride close to the Wall.
I’ll keep my eye on you
from the gate,” Tochan says
and raises the rifle to his chest;
Asa glares at me
next to him, still angry that I get
to ride Horse instead of her.
We take off, fast and then gallop
even faster, and soon enough,
the Wall becomes a dot behind us.
My braids bang against my back,
as if they are urging me
to go faster, faster, farther away.
Way too soon, Horse slows
down to a canter, and then stops altogether
as if she remembers Tochan’s warning.
“A bit more,” I urge her,
“a little farther.”
Just a bit more so I can go
to where the sky meets the earth,
where the sun explodes
into brilliant colors before it hides
to let the night take its place.
Horse’s heart beats in the same rhythm
as my heart, our hearts beat
together. Her steps are my own steps.
She is me and I am her.
It’s my birthday. I am twelve.
TOCHAN’S WARNING
Horse keeps walking slowly
but suddenly she stops
and cranes her neck back,
her eyes peering into mine.
“Yes, I know,” I pat her neck.
It’s as if she knows that we have
gone far enough. Tochan says
that outside the Wall,
anything can happen:
the sudden cold can make you
lose feeling and make you fall
asleep, never to wake up.
He says that outside the Wall,
there are Chinese, Russians,
bad men all. One of the first
things he did when Kachan
—my mother—died,
even before we were done missing her
was to show me where he hides
his gun. “Just in case,” he said as he pulled
it out, along with a hand grenade,
from under his pillow.
This is how you load the gun.
This is how you pull the trigger.
This is how you pull the pin out
of the grenade, but count one-two-
three before you throw it.
And he told me that before the Japanese
moved into Manchuria, this land used to
belong to the Chinese, and that they are still
angry after all these years. That’s why
there’s the Wall, two meters thick
and high as the sky around the settlement.
That’s why when we walk to school,
I have to go with Asa
and come back in a group.
That’s why we have to carry rifles
when we go to the neighboring settlement.
That’s why the gate closes after the curfew.
That’s why I can never ride Horse out
to the plain without asking Tochan first.
Horse neighs. The sky is still
light—it’s summer and the sun won’t set
until ten—but we need to go home.
I turn Horse around, and she seems happy
that we are returning, away
from this dangerous big prairie
where anything can happen.
Wind blows, carrying with it
a hint of the cold night to come,
and with it an imaginary baying of a wolf.
GOING TOO FAR
The sky is still lit white,
though half the sky is deep blue,
deep purple-black—the color
of the water when you grind
the ink against the stone
for calligraphy, the colors swirling
then darkening with each grind—
when Horse and I head back.
I pass by a Manchu’s broken-
down hut, and a pig snorts loudly,
and the house spits out angry
smoke. I click my tongue
to let Horse know we need
to move faster.
She goes into a slow canter.
And the Wall the size of a dot
becomes bigger and bigger,
and I see someone standing there.
It’s Tochan waiting with a rifle,
his anger crackling like firecrackers
at New Year’s. I flinch
as if he’s just slapped me,
and Horse shudders hard
as if she can feel my fear.
TOCHAN’S ANGER
From the way he is standing—
his back straight and his legs apart—
I can tell it’s the stance he gets
when he is worried-angry,
just like he was when Kachan’s
water broke too early and she was howling
from so much pain. Then Tochan stood
with his legs apart, as well—
this time by the doorway
to our hut, angry-worried. Angry
at the world, angry at the baby
for being stubborn, and even more worried
at Kachan, especially when she started to give up,
breathing slower and slower,
until Asa came sliding out slower still.
Auntie told me to catch the baby,
and I held wet, sticky Asa in my arms,
while Kachan closed her eyes and stopped
breathing and Asa wailed loud.
Tochan stood by the doorway,
not letting Kachan’s soul out of the house.
He stood there, with his legs apart,
trying to hold on to her, trying to make her
stay, but she left and he got angry-sad.
Then he got angry-worried about me
and Asa, just like he’s worried-angry
about me right now.
BROKEN PROMISES
“You promised,” Tochan starts,
“you promised you wouldn’t go
beyond the hill where I couldn’t see you.”
Tochan raises his arm
and I flinch and Horse flinches,
but instead, he puts his hand
under my elbow and gently
pulls me down from Horse
the way he touches Asa’s cheek,
> the way he roughens my hair,
the way he talks to chickens and Horse,
gently, in a hushed tone,
and I know he’s not worried-angry anymore.
We pass by Auntie’s house, pass
the communal well and the latrines,
pass the bathhouse and our chicken coop,
to our home where I see Asa’s face peering out
from the lit window, her eyes laughing
and her mouth moving, You’re in real trouble.
I stick my tongue out; Asa laughs.
Tochan doesn’t look at me.
He doesn’t say a word.
He keeps walking fast
as if I am a ghost he doesn’t see.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper,
and Tochan turns around.
“I’m just relieved that
you are safely home. I’m just happy,
especially since this is your birthday, Natsu,”
and everything is all right between us.
THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT
Asa bursts out
of the front door
like a colt bolting out
from the stable,
“Are you in trouble?”
she chants, “Are you in trouble?”
Tochan grabs her
and lifts her onto
his shoulder,
“It’s Natsu’s birthday,
of course she’s not
in trouble,” and he laughs.
“Happy birthday, my little summer,”
he says softly, just like
Kachan used to call me,
my little summer. Asa laughs
from her high perch on Tochan’s
shoulder, and pulls out a piece
of paper from her pocket.
There I am: on Horse
dashing through the golden prairie.
“Happy birthday, Natsu-chan,”
Asa chants, “happy birthday,
my big big sister!”
LETTERS TO THE SOLDIERS
Tochan sits on the mat woven
from corn husk, cleaning the blade
of the hoe for work in the fields tomorrow,
and Asa sits next to him,
drawing pictures on the months-old
newspapers. I sit at the table
and write letters to the soldiers
fighting for Japan on the islands
in the Pacific so I can put them
in the comfort packages
we’ll be packing at school.
I lick the lead
of the pencil,
and I start
in my best handwriting,
Thank you for fighting for the Emperor,
for Japan, and for all of us “behind the guns”
at home. Don’t worry about us.
We will fight to the last man and woman
if the American devils come,
so please kill as many Americans as possible
and please die honorably like a soldier
of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy.
Just like I was taught at school,
our teachers telling us this is the only
kind of letter fit for our fighting soldiers.
I fold the letter in fourths, put one
of Asa’s drawings inside, seal them
into an envelope, and start on the next.
All around our cottage,
the darkness has yet to arrive,
the sun lingering in the horizon
like a lazy cow in July.
But inside, the temperature drops
and darkness is creeping one inch
at a time along the wall.
KACHAN’S GHOST
Some nights like tonight when I can’t sleep,
I count memories of Kachan like people count
sheep. I remember her singing:
she only sang one song about a girl who went
to America wearing red shoes. I remember
when she used to sit really close by the lamp
to sew or mend, she would always lick the end
of the thread, squinting her eyes, before she put it through
the eye of the needle. It made Tochan laugh every time.
Laughing is something that Tochan doesn’t do now.
He must have buried his laughter inside
Kachan’s coffin with her body. I remember Tochan yelling
at me to keep the water boiling so he could melt
the frozen ground. Only then could he bury Kachan.
I remember Goat living in our hut
that long winter so we could give milk to Asa.
And when Goat died, we were all sad
but thanked her for a good dinner that night.
I remember before Asa came, Tochan,
Kachan, and I slept in the shape of the Chinese
character for river, three parallel lines, with me in the middle.
And when Asa came, I slept where Kachan once slept,
with Asa in the middle. Tochan calls my mom
Kachan—mother—and that’s why I call her this.
I also know that every morning,
Tochan talks to Kachan at the altar,
asking her to look after Asa and me.
That makes me real sad, though I don’t tell
Tochan I hear what he says. Sometimes, I know why
Kachan died: because I didn’t love her enough.
If I had loved her enough, she would’ve wanted
to stay with us. And sometimes,
I remember that feeling right after she died,
the feeling of my heart breaking
into pieces like an icicle
shattering against the ground in early spring,
and I never want to feel like that, ever again.
That’s why I don’t like to remember Kachan that much—
All I remember is sadness.
ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
“Horse, see you later,”
Asa yells, as we run
out of the house
past the well, and past
Auntie’s hens,
“Natsu and Asa,
are you late again?”
Auntie yells, making
the hens flap their wings,
as if they’re keeping time
with her voice, and even
they are chiding us.
We run toward the Wall,
“Natsu-chan, you are
too fast,” Asa whines.
So I slow down
to let her catch up.
“Oh look,”
Asa points to the sky,
“that cloud looks
like a camel.”
“You don’t know what
a camel looks like,”
I tell her, keeping
my ear alert to the bell.
“I do, too, and I want
to be a camel when I grow up.”
I roll my eyes. “You wanted
to be a goat, too, before Goat died
so you could talk to her.
Before that, you wanted to be a hen.
Then a wolf. A bird before that.”
The bell starts ringing;
school’s about to begin. “We need
to run now,” I yell, running even faster,
and I hear Asa behind me: “Don’t leave
me, I can’t keep up!” One. Two.
Three. The bell will stop soon
and we’ll have to clean
the bathroom for the next seven
days if we’re late again.
I run. And run. I hear Asa behind me,
and we both run away from the Wall.
We run through the wheat field,
we run through the blue sky.
AT SCHOOL
Put the rolled-up bandages,
a total of three, in the bottom of the hemp bag.
Place a packet of cigarettes, t
he ones
with a golden chrysanthemum insignia
on the right side atop the bandages;
put the box of sweet caramels
in a yellow box in the opposite
corner, and put the senninbari—
a good-luck charm of one thousand
red stitches of embroidered tiger—
between the candy and the cigarettes.
A tube of toothpaste. A shaving razor.
Slide the magazine, any magazine,
into the bag. Don’t forget the letters.
I tie the neck of the bag.
I start on another one.
All around me, hands blur,
almost like fast-flapping wings of chickens,
all moving quickly to finish the quota
for our brave soldiers.
WE ARE THE EMPEROR’S CHILDREN
We stand at attention
with bamboo spears in our hands.
Vice Principal yells,
Stab the American devil!
And I thrust the bamboo
spear to the left.
Kill the enemy!
And I thrust the spear
to the right,
the imaginary enemy
in the shape of a straw
scarecrow. We move
as one with the call:
Kill the American devil!
We thrust the spears
as one: Take down as many
enemies as you can!
Kill as many enemies
as you can when you die!
We are the Emperor’s children.
We are the children
of the Sun Goddess.
We are the citizens
of the Rising Sun.
We are from the country
where the wind from the gods
blows in times of need to bring us victory.
We will die for the Emperor,
just like those special forces pilots
who smash their planes against the American
ships in the South Sea.
We will die for the Emperor
just like those brave soldiers
who make their last charge
to protect His Majesty the Emperor.
Stab the American devil!
And I thrust the bamboo
spear to the left.
Get ready to kill the enemy!
We throw down the spears
and grab the dried corncobs.
One, two, three, throw the grenades.
Yellow jagged cobs hit the vice
principal. No, no, not me!
I try to hold my laughter