Cherry Blossom Baseball

by Jennifer Maruno

  In the ghost town, Ted was put in charge of building the houses in the orchard. The government had told him to burn the leftover lumber, but Ted was not one to waste. He built a little rowboat and launched it on Carpenter Creek, behind the old apple depository. As her family watched it bob on the water, their hearts soared with hope. Not hopes of escape, or of spying, but of fresh fish for dinner, sunny days on the lake, and swimming adventures.

  But any thoughts of her uncle’s little red boat worried Michiko to no end. Last week, having dropped off her mother’s quilt square at the church hall, she heard Mrs. Morrison talking to someone on the church’s front step.

  Michiko recognized George’s mother’s voice and hid behind the snowball bush to watch and wait for her to leave. She didn’t like this tall woman with her cold, superior smile.

  “I am only doing my patriotic duty,” Mrs. King had said in her sharp, shrill voice. “I take no pleasure in informing the authorities.”

  “What is it now?” Mrs. Morrison responded wearily.

  Michiko saw Mrs. King look around the street and then lean in to speak. “I have reason to believe one of those Japanese men has a boat.”

  “What makes you think that?” Mrs. Morrison asked. “And where would he keep it?”

  “Hidden, of course,” Mrs. King said with a wave of her hand. “The point is it is against the law for anyone of Japanese origin to own a boat.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Mrs. Morrison said, puffing up like a courting dove. “Was your husband born in this country?”

  “Of course he was,” Mrs. King answered in a clipped voice. “Robert grew up down the street from us. What a silly question.”

  “Would it be all right if he owned a boat?”

  “Of course it would be all right if he owned a boat. But he doesn’t.” Mrs. King waved her hands about her face as if she was shooing flies. “I’m not talking about Mr. King owning a boat, although we certainly could afford one.”

  Mrs. Morrison gave a large sigh. “My husband was born in this country as well,” she said. “Is it all right if he owns a boat?”

  “Edna,” Mrs. King said with exasperation, “Ralph knows so much about boats, he is in the navy. You are being ridiculous.”

  “You are the one being ridiculous,” Mrs. Morrison said, placing her hands on her ample hips. “Almost all of the Japanese here were born in Canada. Who cares if they own a boat?”

  “The government cares,” Mrs. King said, clenching her fists. “They could be spying.”

  “In this unimportant town?” Mrs. Morrison asked. Then she paused, put her finger to her chin, and frowned. “Unless,” she said, “unless someone has reason to be watching someone who comes and goes a lot. Like your husband, for example. He does an awful lot of travelling for a small-town banker.” Edna rubbed her hands together. “You know, maybe you should report your suspicious boat. The authorities could find out if your husband is being watched. Who knows what it might all reveal.”

  Mrs. King’s face went ashen. “I don’t know why you have to drag my husband into this.”

  “I’m not dragging anyone into anything,” Mrs. Morrison replied. “You’re the one dragging the lake for spies.”

  Michiko crept out from behind the bush into the sunlight to see Mrs. King marching off in one direction as Mrs. Morrison strolled away in the other. She blew a kiss after Mrs. Morrison.

  “Just three people?” George asked in his usual whiny voice, bringing her back to the baseball diamond. “How can we play a game of baseball with just three people, especially when one is a girl?”

  “We’re not having a game,” Clarence answered with exasperation. “I told you we would be having a practice.” He turned back to Michiko.

  She positioned herself over the plate, determined to hit the ball. This time she tapped it with the tip of the bat. It bounced foul.

  “You dipped your shoulder,” said a deep voice from behind. She peered out from under her oversized cap and smiled. Her Uncle Kaz picked up the ball and walked over to Clarence.

  “How’s her pitching?” he asked.

  “A lot better than her hitting,” Clarence said with a grin. “She’s got a good swing, but she’s afraid of the ball.”

  “I am not,” Michiko yelled back, even though she knew Clarence was right.

  “You playing tonight?” Clarence asked Kaz as he left them to their practice.

  “Behind the Bachelors’ House,” Kaz said. “You coming to watch?”

  Michiko smiled. Kaz was talking about the house she’d lived in when they’d first arrived in town, ahead of the other Japanese people. When her family moved to the apartment over the drugstore, Michiko’s uncle had filled the bedrooms with bunks for single men. The empty apple depository behind it had become the headquarters for the Men’s Baseball Team. All summer long, under the watchful eye of the RCMP, they had been allowed to travel to other camps for tournaments, and they were in the lead.

  “Stop closing your eyes and keep them on the ball,” Clarence said. “How can you be such a great pitcher but such a terrible hitter?”

  I’m not closing my eyes, Michiko thought, I’m just blinking hard. She repositioned herself, determined to make a hit.

  Clarence pitched again. This time Michiko slammed a hard grounder.

  George watched it roll past him.

  “That thing in your hand is called a mitt,” Clarence yelled at him.

  George ran after the ball, picked it up, and walked to the plate. “My turn at bat,” he said, grabbing it out of her hand. “Where did you get this bat, anyway? It looks stolen.”

  Michiko handed him the bat and went into the field. In a short while, her family would be out of this town for good. She couldn’t wait to get away from all these suspicions and bad feelings.

  FINAL PLANS

  I want you to sit down with me sometime this week to help me with a budget,” Michiko’s mother said to Sadie as she took some potatoes from the burlap bag under the sink.

  “We can do it now if you want,” Sadie said. She sat flipping through a stack of Hollywood Star magazines she had taken from the drugstore rack. “No need for me to hurry home; Kaz won’t be back for a few days.”

  “Where has he gone?” Michiko asked, putting her little brother Hiro into his highchair. At one time not very long ago, no one could leave the camp. Now that the rules had changed, people were flying off in all directions looking for work, but not to the other side of the mountains, toward the coast.

  “A meeting, Miss Nosy,” Sadie said.

  “What kind of meeting?” Michiko asked, but no sooner had the words flown out of her mouth than she knew she would be reprimanded for being rude. “I’m sorry,” she said as her mother turned to give her a cold stare.

  Eiko dried her hands on her apron. She handed Hiro a small piece of raw potato as she came to the table. “Is it to do with you-know-what?”

  Sadie nodded.

  How Michiko hated those three little words. Every time she heard them, it meant they had discussed something that she was not to know about. If she asked, she was rude. If she eavesdropped, she was yancha. How was she ever supposed to know out what was going on in her own family?

  “Things will be fine,” Eiko said as she patted her sister’s hand. “They won’t take him.”

  Michiko frowned. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone hope that someone wouldn’t get a job. What kind of job can it be?

  “Things can’t get any worse,” Sadie said. “We will both be out of work once they shut the camp and close the schools for good.”

  “Why doesn’t he just work at the drugstore?” Michiko said. “He could take Dad’s place.”

  “Because, Little Miss Fix-it,” her aunt said, “Kaz’s college education would be wasted in this ghost town.” She put her hands to her head. “Our mother moved from a bamboo hut to a cold water flat to living quarters above her own shop. I’ve gone from my own apartment to a rented hotel room. I should have a house
by now.”

  “Which is exactly why I am making a budget,” Eiko said. “I plan to save every penny I can for a home. Sam is going to make fifty-one dollars a week. We have no rent to pay. I figure twenty dollars for food and thirty for everything else. The salary I make as housekeeper at the new place can go into the bank. It will be a crunch, but worth it. What do you think?”

  Michiko heard her father’s footsteps on the stairs just as the delivery truck out front started up. He came into the kitchen holding a brown paper bag. “Did I hear the word ‘crunch’?” He held up the bag and shook it. “Guess what I’ve got?”

  “Did the peanut man come?” Michiko asked, leaping from her chair. Her father had said at breakfast that a man was coming by to fill the vending machine that had come by freight last week. Michiko loved the little red machine with the glass hopper. After putting in a penny, you were to put one hand under the chute, turn the crank with the other, and peanuts were supposed to fall into your hand. She couldn’t wait to taste them.

  “He did,” Sam said, shaking the bag for all to hear. He poured a few of the small red-skinned nuts into each person’s hand.

  Hiro lifted his hand to his mouth, pushed in the whole batch, and crunched them with enthusiasm. Then he wiped his fingers on the front of his shirt and stuck out his hand for more.

  Sadie, who only ate one or two of anything, poked them about with her finger first, selecting the best. After examining it, she placed it in her mouth, and gave the rest to Hiro.

  Michiko popped them in two at a time but sucked them before she crunched. She wanted to make the taste last forever. With all this talk of a budget, she knew there would be no spare pennies for peanuts.

  Sam gave his clasped fist a shake to move a few nuts between his fingers and thumb, then into his mouth. Shake and pop, shake and pop, then he dusted his fingers to remove the salt. “Ted stopped by,” he told them. “He’s going to miss Sunday dinner because the lumber company is sending him north again. In fact, he might not be back before we leave.”

  “We have to see him before we leave,” Michiko said. She was desperate to warn him about Mrs. King’s suspicions. “I want to tell him something.”

  “He’s going to telephone us on Sunday,” her father called out behind him as he headed back down the stairs. Even though the shop closed at noon on Wednesdays, he still worked to keep the store in tip-top condition.

  Michiko kept forgetting about the newly installed telephone with its very important party line, the RCMP office down the street. The doctor used it to call through prescriptions, and the hospital left messages for people in town.

  Michiko gathered the stack of magazines from the table into her arms and followed her father down the stairs. If I am Miss Nosy and Miss Fix-it, she thought, Aunt Sadie is Mrs. Help-Yourself. No one lets me take magazines from the store. After placing them back on the rack, Michiko realized it was time to get the mail, one of the jobs her parents had given her but not one she particularly enjoyed.

  The post office was at the front of the general store down the street. Groceries were on one side and dry goods at the back. The mail counter had a tiny wicket with slots for letters behind it. The postmistress, the widow of a local farmer, stood behind it in her usual white-collared black dress. Her face had a look that might be a smile, but Michiko knew it was a sneer. The woman’s prejudice was as powerful as ammonia. You could smell it even before she spoke.

  “Too early,” the woman said as soon as Michiko approached the wicket. Her voice was full of bitterness. “You will have to come back.”

  Michiko glanced behind her. She could see something sticking out of their wooden slot, but there was no point in asking. Four o’clock was the only time that the woman would let her pick up the mail, and the clock said five more minutes.

  “I’ll just wait,” Michiko said with a giant smile. It had become a bit of game with her. No matter how nasty the woman was to her, Michiko smiled back. It seemed to make the postmistress more miserable, though, which wasn’t really the point.

  The woman behind the wicket turned with an irritated flick of her hand, grabbed the letters from their slot, and slid them along the counter.

  “Thank you,” Michiko said as she picked them up. She prayed there wasn’t any bad news. Every letter that came to their house seemed to bring nothing but that.

  That evening, during a supper of sausages with onion and cabbage, the letters waited against the sugar bowl. Food always came first.

  Finally, her father slit open the long grey envelope with his penknife and pulled out the paper. He scanned the single sheet, took a deep breath, and handed it to Eiko.

  “It’s approval for our permit!” she said, holding it to her heart. “I didn’t think it would ever come. All we need now are our letters.”

  “What letters?” Michiko asked.

  “Personal reference letters,” Sadie said with a hint of coldness. She stabbed a piece of sausage with her fork in anger. “Letters that say ‘this Japanese-Canadian family will not be a public burden.’”

  “I’ll take them to the RCMP tomorrow,” Eiko said, reaching to take Sam’s empty plate. “The owner of the drugstore has given you a fine reference. Mrs. Morrison has written one, and she talked her neighbour, Bert, into writing one for painting his barn.”

  “Not just me,” Sam said as he opened the second letter. “Michiko and Clarence painted it as well.” He scanned the pages of elegant handwriting. He didn’t even try to read them, just handed them over to his wife.

  Michiko’s mother took the pages and read. Her face lost colour as she uttered the exclamation, “Oh, dear!”

  “What’s wrong?” Sadie asked.

  Eiko read out loud. “We have lost an employee and would like you to come as soon as possible. The flowers will soon be ready to harvest, and bulb retrieval will follow,” she read. “We will be able to accommodate you, but not your family until your quarters are made ready.”

  Sadie gave a sharp cry. “What?”

  Her mother lowered the letter to the table. “The rest is just new terms of employment.”

  “We’ll have to change my train reservation,” Sam said, taking the letter back. His furrowed brow gave him an anxious look.

  “I’ll take this letter along with the rest,” her mother advised.

  “Let’s see it,” Sadie said, holding out her hand. She scanned it quickly and handed it back to Sam. “At least your job’s not as dangerous as the one Kaz hopes to get.”

  Michiko had swept the stairs for what she hoped would be the last time. She put down the dustpan and broom and sat for a rest. Her almost packed suitcase waited on the floor beside her bed, her dresser drawers empty and clean. All she had to do was put in her nightgown after she dressed in the morning. There were no new shoes to pack or wear.

  Sadie had washed and rearranged most of the shelves in the drug store and was standing at the top of the ladder with a feather duster, cleaning the paddles of the ceiling fan, when Kaz arrived. Michiko was still a little shy of this tall bronze-skinned man with short black hair and chocolate eyes. Last year he had been her teacher, now he was her uncle.

  “Jump,” he said, seeing his wife on the ladder. “I’ll catch you.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Sadie said crossly.

  Michiko heard her come down the ladder. If I remain quiet on the stairs, I just might find out about his dangerous job, the one Sadie doesn’t want him to get.

  “Well,” Sadie said with a great sigh, “tell me what happened.”

  “It was just as they said in the newspaper,” Kaz said. “The British Command sent a recruiting officer to seek out candidates. Winston Churchill admonished Prime Minister Mackenzie King for the lack of Nisei in Canadian uniform.”

  Michiko knew that Nisei meant Japanese born elsewhere, unlike her father, who was Issei, born in Japan, and then came to Canada.

  “How about that,” Sadie said with heavy sarcasm. “Someone actually reprimanded our prime minster, the great M
ackenzie King.”

  Michiko could hear her aunt tapping the floor with the toe of her shoe, something she did when she was nervous.

  “Did you get accepted?” Sadie said.

  “They don’t want us,” Kaz replied. “Present Canadian regulations do not permit such personnel to be enlisted in the Canadian Army.”

  “That is the best news I’ve heard all week,” Sadie screeched. Michiko knew her aunt would throw her arms around him and kiss him. That always embarrassed her.

  “I’m not going to give up,” Kaz said seriously. “I filled in all the forms and told them to keep my name on file.”

  Michiko heard the squeak of one of the red stools at the soda fountain as he sat down.

  “So what is our next move?” Sadie asked as the stool next to him creaked.

  “There’s still Alberta.”

  There was such a long pause, Michiko couldn’t stand the suspense and put her head around the corner to see and hear better.

  A dark splotch of blush had crept along her aunt’s slender throat. “I won’t be stoop labour in a beet field just so you can get into a uniform. That’s the only job I’ll get if we go to Alberta.”

  “It’s not the uniform, and you know it.”

  Sadie jumped up and turned to him in anger. “Have you completely forgotten Hastings Park? It was the army that brought all the Japs in and cooped them up.”

  Kaz crossed his arms and leaned back in a position that suggested conversation was over until Sadie composed herself.

  Sadie dropped back down onto the stool beside him. “After all the government has done to humiliate us, you still want to sign up. I just don’t understand.”

  “The only one that can humiliate you is yourself,” Kaz replied. He put his arm around her. “We talked about this before. I told you I was in agreement with the Japanese Canadian Citizen’s League when they petitioned the government. They even paraded on the Powell Street baseball grounds to prove they were ready for action.”