by Mariko Nagai
the same. Time doesn’t stand
still. But there is always
Miss Tanaka, when she is not
teaching, by my bedside.
SPRING BURIALS
Men go down the hole
in the yard and throw
the bodies, one after another,
out of their wintry graves.
Before the bodies thaw
fully, they pull them out
like they would
potatoes, and throw
them into the back
of the truck to cremate.
I watch a bundle of white sheet
being pulled up from the hole.
I know that’s Auntie.
I put my hands together
and pray that she is happier
where she is.
Families watch
with their hands pressed
together in the form
of prayer, praying
that their loved ones
can go to the other world
finally now that
spring is here.
THE RED DOOR
I sit on the steps in front
of the red door, the address
that the Russian woman gave
me when I sold my sister.
Maybe Asa is happier.
Maybe Asa has forgotten
about me already.
Maybe she’s angry.
Maybe she’s dead.
That’s when the red door bursts open
and I see the old Russian woman coming
out of the house. I hear the pattering
of footsteps from the interior
of the house, and then Asa
—her face rounder and with pink cheeks
just like back home so many months ago—
pokes her head out. I hold my breath.
It is Asa, just as she was.
And looking healthy.
Then the door closes
before I have a chance to speak.
But my heart bursts.
My steps feel light. I walk
on clouds, as if I’ve been
pulled to the sky.
Asa’s safe, my heart sings.
Asa’s safe. She’s all right.
My heart sings and sings.
THE OFFICIAL NEWS
It is official.
We are to begin
moving out
of the school
and there will be
a boat to take us
to Japan,
our “repatriation”
back to Japan soon.
But I’m not leaving.
I’m not leaving
until I have Asa,
until it’s me and Asa
going back to Japan,
just like I promised Tochan.
UNTIL THE DAY I DIE
I wake up in the morning.
I know what I have to do.
I leave without telling Miss Tanaka
where I am going.
I walk through the busy boulevard
with trees already dark
green and summery,
but I don’t stop. I keep walking
until I get to the house
with the red door and I knock.
The servant opens the door.
I tell him I want to talk
to the Russian lady here,
and he tries to stop me,
but I walk in, not bothering
to take off my shoes,
not bothering to be polite.
I walk straight through
the hallway and into the living
room, or so I think,
where I find an old Russian woman
sitting on a velvet couch
with Asa next to her.
“Natsu-chan!” Asa yells,
running toward me, but the woman
pulls her back. “Natsu-chan, I knew it,
I knew you’d be alive! I knew
you’d come get me!” Asa wriggles
in the woman’s arms, she bites,
kicks, but the woman ignores it all.
“I came to get my sister back,”
I demand, my heart beating
fast, faster, bravely,
though my mouth is as dry
as the ground in drought.
“She’s my child now,”
the Russian woman says
in broken Chinese,
enough for me to understand,
and puts her arm
around Asa.
Asa wriggles away.
“I paid you already.
She’s my daughter now,” she says.
She looks up and down, at me,
and adds, “You can’t provide
the life she deserves.”
“She’s my sister,” I yell,
my hand curling into a tight
fist. “I have your money, take it,”
and I throw the money at her.
“You have to leave now,” she says,
dismissing me, and the old servant looks
at me as if to say, “Go, please go.”
I lunge at Asa, try to pull her to me,
and the servant lifts me under his arm
and carries me down the hall.
“Asa! Asa!” I yell out her name,
trying to hold on to anything,
everything, but my hands slip.
“I’m coming back every day
until you return Asa to me,”
I yell as I am thrown out of the house
and lie on the dirty stone-
paved street. I promise. I will
make their life a living hell
until I can get Asa back.
TENTH DAY
It’s been ten days,
and I’ve come to the red door
and sat at their steps
every day.
Whenever somebody
walked by, I would chant,
“They stole my sister.
They stole my sister
and I am here to reclaim her.”
People gave me funny looks
the first week but now
they smile or give me food.
The old servant comes out once
in a while and brings
a cup of tea or some food.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,
but you looked hungry
so I brought you some leftovers.
She’s a good woman.
She really took care
of your little sister when she first
came here. Your sister was so
difficult, demanding that we take
her back to you, and we had to tell
her that you were dead. Why did you
show up when she finally settled? Just forget
about your sister,” he tells me kindly,
and goes back inside.
She may be stubborn
but I am more stubborn.
“They stole my sister.
They stole my sister
and I am here to reclaim her,”
I chant, my throat drying up.
But I keep chanting, chanting,
to get Asa out of the house
and back to where she belongs: with me.
A man walks by and I chant,
“They stole my sister,”
pointing at the red door.
The man smiles and pats my head.
A Chinese servant walks
by with a basket full
of tofu and green leaves.
“They stole my sister,”
I say and she looks away.
The Russian woman pokes
her head out of the door.
“I’m not giving her back,”
she yells, and I yell back,
“You stole my sister.
You’re a thief, old lady!”
She slams the door shut.
&nbs
p; I’ll wear down her stubbornness
with my own stubbornness
like a stone losing its edges
in the strong river current
over many years.
DISAPPEARING CHINESE
The gate of a mansion burst
open, and a man in a long silk robe
came out, his hands tied
in the back. The Communist
soldiers yelled something
about how he was a capitalist
and a collaborator of Imperialist
Japan. The last I saw, he was
being led away from the mansion
with his family huddling
in the corner, crying out his name.
Like the Japanese men
disappearing when the Russians
came to the city.
I close my eyes and keep walking.
THREE MORE WEEKS
Miss Tanaka says that
we will leave
the schoolroom
in mid-July,
three weeks
from now.
I only have
three weeks
to get Asa back.
RAIN
Raining today. People walk by
with umbrellas, not paying attention
to me sitting on the steps. My clothes
are heavy, but this is my job.
Like begging back in winter,
like working on the farm,
this is my job now: getting Asa back.
Suddenly, the door opens,
the Russian woman pokes
her head out and yells,
“You’re going to catch your death!”
And I yell back, “You stole my sister.
You’re a wicked old lady!”
“I paid for her,” she yells and slams
the door shut. I stick out my tongue.
The door opens again, and she throws
a yellow umbrella with a pearl handle
at me and slams the door again.
WHAT WE CAN TAKE, WHAT WE CAN’T TAKE
The Japanese Community tells us
that we cannot take any photos,
letters, or notebooks with us;
that we are to take only the necessities:
money up to 1,000 yen,
and whatever clothes still cling
to our shrunken bodies.
Nobody told us why we can’t take
these other things.
Maybe they are trying to erase
the history of Manchuria
from our memory,
or from the memory of history itself,
leaving the dead behind in a country
that no longer exists on the map.
A PRAYER
Dear Tochan, I know you are not dead
but I hope you can hear me. I got sick.
I got really sick and I thought I was going
to die. And I gave up Asa because I didn’t
know what to do if I were to die and she was
left on her own. But I got better. Tochan,
I promise you, I’ll get Asa back
and I’ll never let her go. So help me this
one time, do something so that the awful
Russian woman will return Asa to me.
Tochan, if you can’t hear me,
what about you, Auntie. Can you hear me?
Can you help me get Asa back?
And oh, one more thing, Auntie,
can you tell Tochan to hurry up and come find us?
I AM AS STUBBORN AS HORSE
I sit on the steps.
It’s a beautiful day,
the temperature not too hot,
not too cold. And if I close
my eyes in these pockets
of moments when no one is on
the street, I can almost imagine
myself back in the settlement,
standing by the gate and looking out
on the never-ending field.
I can almost imagine watching
Tochan leading Horse back
from the field, I can almost hear
other settlers settling in for dinner,
the hamlet busy with a clutter of pots
and plates and of cooked vegetables
with burning soy sauce.
I open my eyes and find myself back
in Harbin, back in front of the red-door
house, and I curse out loud,
“You are a thief, old woman!”
just to remind her I am still here,
that I am not going away until
she returns Asa to me.
SUNDAY
My stomach growls.
There is nothing
to do except to sit
on the steps, waiting
for someone to walk by
so I can chant,
“They stole my sister.
They stole my sister,”
but it’s a lazy day.
Maybe it’s a day when
the Russians go
to the onion-shaped
dome on the square.
The door opens.
The old servant pokes
his head out, looks around,
and sits next to me, pulling out
a bag of fried doughnuts
sprinkled with sugar.
“I haven’t had sugar
in such a long time,”
I wrinkle my nose
in joy and take a bite.
The sweetness spreads
inside of my mouth
and my tongue can’t get
enough of it.
“The madam asked about you,”
the old servant says.
“What does she want?”
I ask, then take another big
bite. “She thinks that you are
stubborn, but in a good way.”
I am about to take another
bite but I stop. I open my mouth.
“The train leaves
on the third Monday at six a.m.
That’s when all the Japanese
have to leave,”
I tell him. He looks down.
The silence between us
heavy but loud
with things I can’t hear.
He gets up without a sound.
He closes the door without a word.
WHAT I WILL TAKE WITH ME
I take the photos,
family registry,
birth certificates,
and postal saving books
from my backpack,
and photos and papers
from Auntie’s bag,
and sew them into
the lining of my coat,
threading the corners
into the fabric so that they
will not be dislodged.
Auntie’s sewing kit
is what I keep because
it’s how I remember her: always sewing.
And I will take Auntie’s bag
and I will take Asa’s hand
and we will both be on the boat.
I’ve traveled 1,000 li
just like the senninbari tiger
I gave Tochan,
and I will travel 1,000 li
more with Asa until Tochan
will find us wherever we end up.
I sew the pieces
back together to sew
back my past into the present.
THE STUBBORN OLD WOMAN
The red door opens with a bang.
“You, girl, get out of here!”
the Russian woman yells out,
her green eyes turning dark, almost
black, with anger. “You’re a thief,
old woman! Give me back my sister!”
I yell at her, shaking my fist.
She waves her cane at me.
We keep waving at each other—
my arm, her cane, until she laughs weakly.
; “Here, you must be hungry,” and
a bag lands on my lap, a bag full of fried doughnuts.
THE DAY BEFORE
I bang a rock against the door.
“Give me back my sister.
Give me back my sister,”
I yell with each bang,
and the Russian woman pokes
out her head. “You can do that
all you want, but she’s not going
anywhere!” she yells out,
her white hair in its bun
shaking in rhythm with her
raised cane. Then she slams
the door shut and I keep banging
on the door, shouting,
“Give me back my sister.
Give me back my sister,”
even after my voice disappears,
even after the sun sets and the night
has surrounded the neighborhood
and the door doesn’t open.
THEN IT DOES
And the Russian woman
comes out holding Asa’s hand.
“You won, you stubborn girl.
You take care of your little sister,
you hear? She is a good girl,
and you are a good sister.”
And with that, she hugs Asa,
“Don’t forget me, little girl,”
and Asa and I are once again one,
our arms around each other,
and I am never letting her go.
My promise to Tochan is fulfilled.
THE END
The train keeps moving,
halting, moving, almost
like it’s hiccuping through
the landscape so like
the one we walked
to get to Harbin a year ago.
Asa didn’t talk to me
for the first hour as we walked
from the Russian woman’s house
to the port, but after five thousand
sorrys, she said, “You gave me
away and I was scared.
But Madam Borisovna was nice,
she said that you were really sick
and that you had to send me away
to her until you got better.
She told me later that you might
have died, and she felt bad
that she didn’t take you with her.
But I knew you couldn’t have died.
I knew you’d come get me.
Here, she gave us a bag of doughnuts.”
My arms tighten around Asa
in the crowded cattle train.
Miss Tanaka sits with us,
her bag so small it seems
to fit in her hands.
The train keeps moving,
halting, moving,
southbound, always moving,